Confessions of a Confused Teenager, Book One
by Kaisa Enara
Summary: Alee's a normal middle school girl having a bad day. And then she falls into Middle Earth. Bet you didn't see that one coming. Last chapter finally posted!
1. And So It Begins

Yes, I'm back. This story has been floating around for a little over a year as something of a personal project, but thanks to several people from camp begging me to let them read it, I am finally posting. Thank you, people. You know who you are.

Be warned, this first chapter is full of a lot of inside jokes that only a few readers (namely my really good friends) will understand, as this is what a typical school day was like for me this past year. And, since protecting the innocent is not currently on my priority list, not even the names have been changed. So if you don't understand something, just live with it; this chapter has barely anything to do with the actual story anyway.

An additional notice, since every single thing I post on gets italicized for some reason, thoughts and italicized words will be in equal signs. Just so no one's confused. (ETA 1/07: Just kidding. Seems they fixed that a while ago. So I've fixed it here.)

Well, I think that's it. Oh, wait...it's not. Lord of the Rings isn't mine. Okay. Now I'm done. Start reading.

**Confessions of a Confused Teenager**

_The year is 1954. J.R.R. Tolkien's muse dies, and therefore he never writes _TheSilmarillionThe Hobbit_, or _The Lord of the Rings_ trilogy. And since the books are never written, the movies are never made, and so on. Middle-earth and its inhabitants are never made known._

Fifty years later (Year 2004), a girl in Arizona is having a few problems. She wants to go someplace far away, away from her mother, her teachers, her life. But when her wish comes true, she gets a bit more than she bargained for...

Chapter I (Semi-Pointless Prologue Type Thing)

_ I hate my life. Why me? I swear, I must have been some kind of terrorist in my past life; that is the only reason I can think of explaining why I am being punished so._

This was about the fiftieth time this message had circulated my brain. What, you ask, had put me into this fine, cheery mood? The D on my midterm, that's what. Not only that, but a D in Language Arts. Which, aside from art, and German, is relatively easy.

Currently, I was in home base, Room S5 at Alice Vail Middle School (or Alice Vail Junior Jail, as it was affectionately called by the students). I glared at anyone who walked in, and would then glare a second time, daring them to ask what my problem was. All I needed was one little excuse to hit somebody.

We stood up and said the Pledge. Well, we stood up and Schaub and the speaker-box said the pledge, because we'd all just learned in social studies that saying the pledge wasn't required of us. And then, the announcements were made, and eventually they were over. Schaub, our wonderful, racist science teacher (she hates anyone who isn't Portuguese like her, or so we in her class have theorized), launched into her newest torture-method-of-choice, a lecture on the three states of matter.

I glanced about the room as I pulled my binder from my backpack. Every poor, unfortunate eighth-grader in the room wore the same expression: one that clearly said, _Shut up, Schaub, we all learned this stuff in like third grade. _

I unzipped my binder, and pulled out my science notebook, and then, my copy of _Abarat_, by Clive Barker. There was no way I was actually going to listen to Schaub's monotonous ramblings for the next 45 minutes.

I opened the book to where I'd left off, and pulled out the old napkin I had used as a bookmark. On it were several little notes; I remembered passing them back and forth to my friend Lauren last year.

Lauren. Just thinking about her brought the suckiness of my pathetic life crashing down upon me once again. Last year, Lauren had somehow managed to get a 1.7 in language arts, and her mother didn't even bat an eye. _One point seven freaking percent_!

And me? Well, I just got a 60, and my mom had not only smashed up my bulletin board in a fit of rage, but also had the posters ripped down off my walls, torn one of my books (Remnants #7) in half, and thrown the first chapters of the novel I was writing straight into the garbage can! Not to mention that there wasn't a snowball's chance in Hades that I was going on Anaheim Tour with the band in the spring. And all for a 60! On a _midterm_, no less!!!

I opened _Abarat_ and forced myself to read it. I wished more than anything right then that I would just fall into the book. If I was away from my stupid teachers and my evil mom, life wouldn't be so bad.

The bell finally rang sometime later, and the rest of the day went by pretty normally.

Pre Algebra: Draw a new "Fear the Moon" comic about our math teacher, who was, basically, Satan in disguise.

Symphonic Band: Work on music for upcoming ABODA festival; pass notes to Torie between songs; explain to Stephanie that the song's name is "By Loch and Mountain," not "By _Lock_ and Mountain," and that "loch" was not a typo.

Art: Wonder why the class is called Advanced Art when Mrs. Averitt is explaining what a color wheel is.

Lunch: Eat, mooch, and be mooched from.

German: Let Torie copy my work, snicker at the music video of "Ich Bin Wieder Hier."

Language Arts: Read _To Kill a Mockingbird_. Meg Cabot was so right; Bob Ewell deserves to get blown away with a flamethrower.

Social Studies: Count down the minutes until the bell rings.

And so the day was over. While waiting for the bus transfer, I sat and talked with my friend Chris. I was in a bad enough mood that I even started throwing things at anyone who dared make a comment about Chris's involvement in the state of my virginity (or supposed lack thereof). By the time I got onto the bus, I was about ready to kill somebody.

And the bus ride was just as bad, if not worse, than school. Schuyler wasn't there, so no candy. Jason wasn't there, so no RPGs to distract me. That kid Ricky had taken my seat, so I had to sit it the back with Penthouse-Boy and the rest of the psychos.

And then, to top it all off, my stalker, Michael, came up to me and started touching my leg. As in, above the knee. I kicked him hard enough to send him flying out of his seat.

And finally, an hour later, we got to my stop, and I dashed off the Torture-Chamber-on-Wheels, a.k.a. Bus 19. Then I walked the four blocks to my house. Now that school was over, I was going to go do my homework, practice my flute, and try to figure out how to play my guitar.

But then, a little voice in my head whispered, "Go on, go home. But your mom will be there. And then, you'll just have to go back to school tomorrow. Just go somewhere else; then you'll be rid of it all."

It was an extremely tempting thought. And before I knew it, I found myself crossing the street and climbing down into the wash. I walked for a minute or two, and then shouted, impersonating Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., "Free at last, free at last! Thank God Almighty, I'm free at last!"

And then, like the stupid klutz I am, I tripped. The last thing I remembered was seeing a rock rushing up to greet me, a sharp pain in the middle of my face, and then everything going black.

_And that's the first chapter. Before anyone kills me, yes I _know_ this had absolutely nothing to do with LOTR. You'll just have to wait until chapter two for that. Don't worry, I'll post it tomorrow. Later today if I feel like it. So don't worry. Just review_.


	2. Life Sucks

_That's right, I'm back. I got my first review only a few hours after I posted the first chapter, so I'm being nice and posting the second. Thank you for the review, **Gwenivive**!_

And, you readers will be happy to know that this chapter actually has something to do with Lord of the Rings_! (Amazing, isn't it, considering that it's a LOTR fanfic and all...)_

On a final note, Lord of the Rings doesn't belong to me. Alee belongs to me because, well, I am_ Alee. So don't sue me. If you do, in the words of my friend Kiami Sinno (_subliminalmessage:_ Read her stories and review them :_endsubliminalmessage_), all you'll get is a lot of paperwork and wasted time.  
_  
Chapter II (In which the story actually becomes a LOTR fic)

I noticed two things upon waking. One, my face hurt. Two, the seven or so swords pressed against my throat, chest, stomach, arms, and legs. My first thought was: _Swords? Who uses swords these days?_ But what I said was, "Oh, great. Just _great_. The perfect ending to the perfect day."

"Quiet!" a voice above me commanded. The sword against my upper right arm pressed forward, ripping my gray sweater and drawing blood.

"Ow!" I yelped. "Jeez, that _hurt_! I'll shut up, okay?"

The sword jabbed me again. "I said be silent!" the voice repeated.

My arm really hurt now, but I remained silent, in fear of getting my entire arm hacked off.

"Boromir, stop." This time it was a new voice. "There's no need to cut her arm off."

"Why not?" Voice #1 asked.

"She may just be an innocent bystander," a new voice said.

"Innocent bystander? Ha!" Voice#1 laughed. "What would an innocent bystander be doing skulking around our camp in the middle of the night?"

Oh. Dude, it _was_ night. That meant I'd been out for...let's see...anywhere from five to eight hours. Wow.

Voice #1's last comment made me think. Camp? What camp? I hadn't seen one. What was going on?

"Who knows?" Yet another new voice. "She's dressed so strangely. I don't think she's from around here. I don't think she even knows what's going on, judging from the look on her face."

_Thank you_! I yelled silently. I felt like a bug under a microscope, or something.

A fifth voice joined the debate. "Let her up, and _she_ can tell us what she was doing."

I didn't really feel like telling a bunch of people I didn't know that I was running away from home. But hey, if it got those damned swords off me...

One by one, each weapon was withdrawn. The last of which was the one Voice #1 has lodged into my arm.

I stood up slowly. As I did, I touched my nose. It hurt like hell; that must have been where that rock had hit it. A line of dried blood started at one nostril and traced its way down to my upper lip. But I was lucky nothing was broken.

Once my vision had adjusted to the darkness, I took a look at my captors (or whatever they were).

Four of them were like two feet shorter than me, and in this light looked like kids. Kids with swords.

Another was also short, but was in no way childlike seeing as how he had a beard. I knew for a fact that he wasn't the one pinning me to the ground because he was holding an ax.

One was an old man, with a long gray beard that matched the color of his clothes. His face was completely shadowed by a wide-brimmed gray hat, and he was leaning on a gnarled wooden walking stick.

There was a tall, golden-haired, extremely good-looking guy hanging behind everyone else. He carried a bow, and a quiver of arrows was at his back.

The last two I could barely tell apart. Hey, it was dark. I identified one as Voice #1, because the tip of the sword he held was dark. With what? Oh, yeah..._my_ blood. Damn, my arm had never hurt this much in my entire life!

"I, um...I'm..." I tried, but nothing understandable came out of my mouth.

"Well?" Voice #1 asked impatiently. "What are you doing here?" He extended his sword arm forward in a gesture of "talk or die."

I found my voice. "I have an idea. Why don't _you_ tell us why I'm here and _I'll_ wave the sword around!" I didn't even know the guy, and I already hated him.

He glared, but didn't reply.

"Well," I said. "I'm out here because I just ran away from home. This afternoon, I just...I dunno, didn't go back to my house. I came out here, and I tripped and hit my head. When I woke up, you people were standing over me. That's all I know."

"Liar," Voice #1 said. "You couldn't have come here from your home in a matter of hours! The nearest inhabited land is Rivendell, and that is days away!"

_Rivendell_? I thought. _What_? "What are you talking about?" I asked. "My place is right over..."

I pointed in the direction of my house, where you could see the road. But the road was gone. So was the entire wash. I looked down, and saw that I was standing on lush green grass.

"...there," I finished, my voice faltering. "Screw that. I officially have no clue where I am."

"Let's move on then," Voice #2 said. "_Who_ are you?"

Now that was something I _could_ answer. "My name is Alee."

"Where do you come from?" Voice #2 questioned.

"Arizona," I said. "Okay, look. Why are you people interrogating me? It's not like I did anything _wrong_. And—"

I was about to say something to enforce my opinion, but then I realized that everyone was looking at me like I was speaking a different language, or something. Then they all went into a huddle and began discussing what I'd just said. I heard snatches of their conversation.

"Arizona? Where's that?"

"I don't know, Merry. I've never seen it on any of Bilbo's maps. And he has maps of just about every land in Middle-earth."

"Strider? You're a Ranger. Ever heard of this Arizona place?"

"In all my years in the Wild, I have never come across such a land."

"It is obvious she is lying. The girl is a spy for the Enemy. Her story is a mere excuse for being at our camp."

"What? We found her unconscious, Boromir!"

"What does that matter?"

"I don't know. It just didn't occur to me that a spy, even the most inexperienced, would trip and knock herself out."

"Besides, out of all his minions and servants, why would Sauron send a young girl to spy on us?"

"She is nothing more than a child. And not even armed. She couldn't be an agent of the Dark Lord."

"That is exactly what she _wants_ us to think. I tell you, she is a spy for Sauron! We should kill her so she does not get any information back to her master!"

Great. After getting bad grades, hitting my head on a rock, and nearly getting shish-kebabed by a group of psychos, said psychos were now plotting my demise.

Have I ever mentioned how much life truly sucks?

_Well, that's the second chapter. Hope you liked it._

If anyone's confused about Voice #1, Voice #2, and so on, I have the names of everybody incorporated into the next chapter.

Just so you all know: Reviews motivate me to write faster. (But the next chapter will be up sometime tomorrow, since it's already written and everything...)

Review anyway. Please? Even flame me if you want to. I don't care about flames; if you think my story sucks, that's your opinion and I respect it.

But, anyway, just review. Thank you.

_(ETA 1/07: Wow, Voice #1 sure sounds a little like paranoid!Console, doesn't he? All right, I know most of you won't get that, but I just had to say it.)_


	3. Mocking Alee's Existence

_No more reviews...that makes me sad...thanks again to **Gwenivive** for her review. At least I'm loved by _somebody_..._

Must I really reiterate that the only part of this story that I actually legally own is the character of Alee? Grr...all right. Don't own LOTR. Never have, never will. There.

As an additional note, there are a few fangirlish comments about Legolas in this chapter (I'm sorry, I couldn't resist). And there are going to be more throughout the fic. But I absolutely refuse_ to let this fic become the typical "girl falls into Middle-earth, nobly helps save it from utter destruction, falls in love with Legolas and lives happily ever after" kind of fic. Just so you know._

Anyway, I'm going to shut up now and let you read.

Chapter III (The Great Cosmic All mocks my existence)

So my psychotic captors eventually came to the decision that I could live, but I'd have to go with them. Their reasoning for this was that civilization was days away, and they had no intention of backtracking. I was given a spare cloak and a sword, and since the whole group was awake anyway, we set off.

That was around twelve hours ago. By now, I knew the names of my captors/companions: Voice #1 was Boromir, Voice #2 was Aragorn, Voice #3 was Frodo, Voice #4 was Legoals, and Voice #5 was Gandalf. The others were Sam, Merry, Pippin, and Gimli.

And yet, I _still_ had no idea where I was.

So our little troupe headed for a big, snow-covered mountain that Gandalf said was called Caradhras. Okay, so now I knew the _name_ of where I was. But I had a feeling that this Caradhras place wasn't anywhere near Arizona. Or even the United States in general.

As we began our trek up the mountain, I hung back to talk to Merry and Pippin. Weird names (just like everyone else), but the seemed nice enough.

It was close to noon by now, and I could see better, but I still had a bit of trouble telling the two apart. They were both around two feet shorter than me, with curly, dirty-blond hair and brown eyes. But I saw that Merry was wearing a yellow vest, and Pippin a faded blue scarf. That helped.

"Sooo..." I began. Staring conversations had never exactly been my forte.

"You know," Pippin said (he had more of a Scottish accent than Merry; another way to tell them apart). "It's quite easy to tell you're not from Middle-earth. How did you get here?"

_Middle_-_earth_? Uh…did I miss something here?

I shrugged. "I dunno. I told you. I hit my head on a rock, blacked out, and woke up here. But one thing's for sure: I am most decidedly not in Arizona anymore. Or anywhere in America, for that matter."

"This Arizona place you keep talking about," Merry chimed in. "What's it like?"

"Nothing like this," I said. "Just desert. Hot, dry. Barely ever any snow. And cactus. Lots and lots of cactus."

"Cactus?" they asked in unison.

"It's a kind of plant," I explained. "Some can be really, really tall. And they have spikes all over them. A cactus is something you do _not_ want to bump into. Trust me, I know."

The two cringed at the thought of getting stuck full of spines.

"So anyway, where do you guys come from?" I asked.

Merry and Pippin launched into an explanation of their homeland, someplace called the Shire. According to them, it was mostly green, fertile farmland that I could only begin to imagine because, hey, look where I'd spent the past thirteen years of my existence.

After that, we walked along in silence.

"You know what. You are two of the shortest men I've ever seen," I blurted at length.

"We're not men," Merry said, in an almost insulted tone.

"We're hobbits," Pippin added.

I tried to stifle a giggle, but to no avail. I laughed out loud.

"What's so funny?" Merry asked.

"That's one of the best jokes I've ever heard," I laughed. "'We're hobbits.' Hah! That's a good one!"

I walked on, still laughing to myself, until I felt a sharp poke in my back. I turned around, and there were Merry and Pippin, each looking slightly more serious than before.

"We're not joking," Merry said. "We really are hobbits."

I stopped dead. They were joking. _I_ was hallucinating. Or something. Whatever the case they were not hobbits. Were. Not.

"No way," I declared, voicing my thoughts. "Hobbits are like, kid stories or whatever. They don't exist...do they?"

"Are we talking to you right now?" Merry asked, smiling.

Fair enough.

"Ooookay then," I said to myself as we continued on. "I'm hanging out with hobbits. What's next? I suppose they're going to tell me that Gandalf is a wizard and Gimli is, I dunno, a dwarf."

"How'd you know that?" Pippin asked.

"You forgot something," Merry added. "Legolas is an elf, and...and..."

"And Bill is a pony," Pippin finished.

My first thought in response to this: _So THAT'S the pony's name_. Second thought: _Gandalf is a WIZARD? Gimli is a DWARF? Legolas is an ELF? Dear Lord, I've fallen into J.K. Rowling's brain_.

Wait a second.

"That's it!" I exclaimed. "_That's_ why I'm here!"

"What?" Merry asked. "What's why you're here?"

"Look, this might sound kinda weird, but before I came here, I wanted more than anything to just leave my entire life, all of it, behind, and take a permanent vacation from reality," I explained. "Obviously some higher power up there took me a bit too seriously, and now I'm stuck in Fantasy Land."

"Middle-earth," Pippin corrected me, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Right. Sorry. Middle-earth," I said.

All was silent between us. We began walking again. Soon the road changed from dirt, to mud, to pure snow. Five minutes of walking through _that_ and my feet were wet, cold, and I was losing feeling in them. But still, I felt bad for Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin. The hobbits were barefoot.

At one point, Frodo tripped, fell, and rolled a bit down the side of the mountain. I saw Boromir stoop and pick something out of the snow, possibly something Frodo had dropped. When I took a closer look, I saw that it was a plain gold ring hanging from a silver chain. Upon seeing this, Aragorn told him rather forcefully to give it back to Frodo. He did, saying that he didn't care about it.

I had no clue what was going on, but even _I_ could tell Boromir was lying.

Otherwise, the journey was pretty uneventful. And cold. Really cold. I seriously doubted it could get much colder.

And just after I had concluded that thought, the Great Cosmic All decided it was time to mock me again, and thus began a freak blizzard.

The snow was whipped around us at speeds of what had to be 100 m.p.h., and after maybe a minute of _that_, we had gone from walking through one-foot-deep snow, to being stuck in _five_-foot-deep snow. Thankfully, Gandalf used his staff to dig a trench for us to walk through. Not that I was particularly crazy about traveling in a blizzard, but it was better then being trapped in neck-deep snow. I mean, at that point the temperature was a nice, toasty, 20-below, and I had a feeling it was only going to get worse.

Pretty soon the hobbits' feet froze or something, and they had to be carried by Aragorn and Boromir. I also began hating Legolas with a vengeance, because not only did the Elf not seem to be affected by the crappy weather, but, oh no, he was walking on _top_ of the snow like it was nothing. Show-off. ... _Hot_ show-off...

Just as my drool was beginning to freeze, I was jerked out of my daydreams by Legolas' voice. "There is a fell voice on the air!"

_Really_, now. I didn't hear anything. And judging by the looks on almost everyone else's faces, I don't think they heard either.

"It's Saruman!" Gandalf shouted over the howling wind.

Oh. So it _wasn't_ the Great Cosmic All.

"He's trying to bring down the mountain!" Aragorn yelled after some boulders rolled off the side.  
Boromir, who was obviously enjoying our current situation about as much as I was, chose that moment to suggest that we go through the gap of Ro-something instead of staying here. To which Aragorn responded by saying that it would take us too close to Isen-someplace.

Just then, a massive lightning bolt struck the top of the mountain, dislodging about three tons of snow. And, unfortunately for us, there was this little thing called gravity and... well, from that, I think you can gather that we had about six thousand pounds of ice-cold doom coming our way.

I also think you can gather that it hurt. A lot. Really, combine frostbite with three tons of pressure falling on you at a very high speed and see how _you_ feel.

Yeah. I thought so.

So anyway, there I was. I was being crushed under a few thousand pounds of snow for what seemed like hours, though it might have only been a minute or two. I was 99.9 sure I was going to die (from frostbite or being flattened, I wasn't sure), and I was mentally writing out my will. But suddenly, a hand grabbed mine and pulled me up out of what I thought was going to be my icy tomb. Instead of looking at the evil, cold white powder that had nearly caused my untimely demise, I found myself staring into the deep blue eyes of a certain extremely hot elf. Trust me, had it not been so cold out, I'd have melted.

If all elves really looked like that, I'd have to have a word with whoever had thought up the Keebler guys.

But, as I was saying before I got sidetracked, Legolas pulled me up out of the snow, and the others surfaced as well. Last to emerge was Gimli, whose hair and beard were so full of snow he was almost totally camouflaged. He really didn't seem to be enjoying this (gee, I wonder why?), and told Gandalf that we should go through the mines of "Moria." At least I think that was what he said.

Gandalf was silent for a very long moment. Then he looked at all of us and said, "Let the Ring-bearer decide."

Oookay. What Ring-bearer? Wasn't that the guy at a wedding who held the rings on a little pillow?

"We will go through the mines." I looked and recognized the speaker as Frodo. Well, that answered the question of _who_ the Ring-bearer was. But other than that, I was still pretty lost.

At Frodo's response, Gandalf was silent again. Finally, he gave a grim nod and murmured, "So be it."

I wondered what he was getting all weird about. Must've been pretty bad to freak a wizard out, huh?

But who cared, so long as it was warm? I mean, anything is better that freezing to death on some godforsaken mountain that you've never heard of, right?

... _Right_?

_There you have it. The third chapter has been concluded. You know what _that_ means... (looks pointedly at the "review" button.)_

Come on...I need the feedback... (ETA 1/07: Heh. Feedback.)

Okay, well, I need to keep working on this story (not to mention a few other ones that I haven't gotten around to posting), so...bye!


	4. Of Secret Doors and Giant Squids

_Okay, fourth chapter. And I got five more reviews! Yay! I'm happy!_

To the Reviewers...

**Kiami** **Sinno**: Thank you for being kind enough to review me twice_! And as for the shameless plug...well, what are friends for? You'd do the same for me. ...Wouldn't you???_

**TrekieGreenieShannaraElfOfME**: Don't worry. There's plenty of Boromir- dissing in here to keep you happy. Even when that stops (you know, because he does end up dying eventually) I hoe you'll continue to enjoy my fic!

**Sapphire2988**: That twist actually came from a twist in someone else's fic that I um...well...twisted. It's from Shadow Chaser's "The Shadows that Remain" (great fic if you like LOTR and sci-fi), where Tolkien actually plagiarized the Red Book and got rich off it. That was the basis of Tolkien never writing the books. Um...I'm rambling, aren't I? Sorry...

**RenegadeKitsune**: Wow, I'm on someone's favorites list! Woohoo! And...update son??? Who's son??? J/K, I know what you mean!

**Gwenivive**: I know I've already thanked you, but thanks again!

Don't own LOTR...but you already knew that, so let's just get on with it, shall we?

Chapter IV (Four pages for a half-hour's worth of plot)

So we trekked back down Caradhras to get to this Moria place. By nightfall, we were back at the base of the mountain, looking at a straight, black cliff-face.

"The walls...of Moria," proclaimed Gimli.

"Yes, I think we can all see _that_. But where are the _doors_?" I asked irritably. Hey, I had a right to be in a bad mood. I had no idea where I was, I was traveling with a bunch of people I didn't even know, I was still thawing, and there was water melting off me every which-way, collecting in pools at my sneakers.

"Dwarf-doors are invisible when closed," Gimli explained.

"Yes, Gimli. Even their own masters cannot find them if their secrets are lost," Gandalf added, running his hands along the stone.

"Why does _that_ not surprise me?" Legolas asked sarcastically. As he was in front of me, I couldn't see his face, but I could tell from the tone of his voice that a roll of his eyes accompanied his remark.

It was actually pretty funny, seeing two (very realistic) characters out of some whacked-out Disney movie fighting like my little brother and me...

I stopped walking, realizing that it had been almost twenty-four hours since I woke up here. Part of me noted with grim humor that my mom probably had all of Pima County looking for me (milk cartons, here I come), and that Peter was probably looting my bedroom and attempting to sell copies of my diary on eBay. But still, I really missed it. I sighed, and thought, _Man...I wish I were home right now._

"Is something wrong, my lady?" a voice surprisingly close to my ear asked.

I screamed and jumped backwards, lost my footing, and fell butt-first into a pool of murky water. Oh, great.

Looking up, I saw the speaker standing above me. And it was the one person in this madhouse that I really didn't want to see while I was sitting up to my waist in muddy water. (Hint: a certain member of our group with beautiful blue eyes and pointed ears.) At that moment, I considered drowning myself.

_Why me, God?_ I asked silently, looking skyward. _Why must You mock me so?_

Legolas reached out his hand to help me up, and I quickly took it. "Thanks," I said, once I was back on my feet.

"'Twas nothing, my lady," he replied. "Is anything wrong?"

Remembering his original question, I said, "No, not really. Just starting to miss home a bit. But it's okay. I'm sure I'll figure out how to get back soon." I smiled.

Legolas nodded. "As long as you are all right, my lady," he replied, turning away.

"Wait! Uh, Legolas, right?" I asked. "Could you please cool it with the 'my lady' thing? I _have_ a name, you know."

"Then I shall call you by your name, if you wish it," said Legolas.

"It's Alee, in case you forgot or whatever," I said.

"Alee," he repeated. Then he walked away.

I watched him for a minute, and then I realized what had just happened.

_ Jeez, Alee, why do you have to be such a MORON?!_ I thought, mentally kicking myself._ Your first conversation with possibly the hottest guy in the universe, and what do you do?! Fall on your butt! And then, on top of that, you get all snarky on him for calling you 'lady!' That's a good thing!_

Following that was approximately two straight minutes of incoherent mental screaming.

Then the full moon came out from behind the clouds, and a design appeared on the wall. It was a silver design, in the shape of a door. There were characters along the top that I couldn't read.

"It reads: _The doors of Durin, lord of Moria. Speak friend and enter_," Gandalf translated, answering my unasked question.

"What d'you suppose _that_ means?" Merry asked.

"Simple," said Gandalf. "If you are a friend, you speak the password and the doors will open."

"I don't know," I disagreed, wringing water out of my hair. "Think about it. If you're a friend, of course you'll know the password. And the password is meant to be spoken at the door so you can get _in_. Personally, I doubt that anyone intelligent enough to make invisible doors would need instructions on how to use a _password_. It's gotta mean something else."

Merry shrugged. And Gandalf turned toward the door and said something in a foreign language.

"Don't all agree at once," I muttered, heading over to where Pippin was chucking rocks into the water.

Having nothing better to do, I joined him, and listened to Gandalf's voice in the background. It was actually kind of funny, hearing him yell at the door in gibberish.

So, Pippin and I continued to throw stones into the water, until Aragorn came over and told us sharply not to disturb the water. Which caused me to _stop_ throwing stones into the water and begin pacing aimlessly while Gandalf tried to open the door.

_That_ got very boring, very quickly. And when I get bored, I get even more snide and sarcastic than usual.

"Anybody try _open sesame_?" I asked dryly.

Everyone except Gandalf stared dumbly at me. Gandalf just turned around and gave me The Look. You know, the one your mother gives you when you try to tell her a joke after showing her the big fat F on your report card. Basically a mix of "okay, I really don't get this and I hate not being able to get it" and "don't mess with me, Courtney Alexandra; I'm already about to kill you."

"Just _asking_," I muttered under my breath, stalking back off to my pacing area.

After two hours of alternately muttering and yelling at the door in Gobbledygook, Gandalf gave up. He sat down on a rock and looked as though he had no intention of getting up. In other words, we were locked out.

This had to be one of the absolute _crappiest_ days of my life (okay, that is aside from the being-rescued-by-Legolas part), and my mood had long since deteriorated to that of an axe-murderer. I marched up to the door with every intention of beating on the stupid thing until it opened.

Luckily, Frodo saved me from pointlessly breaking my hands. "It's a riddle," he muttered, staring up at the door. "Gandalf, what's the Elvish word for 'friend?'"

_Elvish?_ I thought. This was just getting weirder by the minute. _Hey, that sounds like 'Elvis.' Heh, heh._

Call it a blonde moment, call it idiotic. I call it true.

"_Mellon_," Gandalf told Frodo. With a rumble, the door slowly swung open.

"Told you so," I smirked, walking in. The others followed suit (walking in, I mean, not smirking).

"Soon, master Elf, you will see the fabled hospitality of the Dwarves," Gimli said to Legolas. "Roaring fires, malt beer, ripe meat off the bone." Hey, that didn't sound half bad! Except maybe the beer part.

It was dark in there. Really dark. I had trouble seeing a few feet in front of me.

"This is the home of my cousin Balin," Gimli continued. "And they call it a mine. A mine."

My good spirits were brought down suddenly, as I realized that it was quiet. _Too_ quiet (if you'll excuse the cliché) to be a mine. Or anyone's home, for that matter.

"This is no mine," Boromir said softly. "It's a tomb."

I wondered what he meant by that as I took a few more steps in. My foot hit something other than dirt. Something solid. I stepped on it, and there was a loud SNAP! It echoed off the walls.

Looking down, I saw pieces of a (presumably human) skull beneath my foot. I jumped backward and, for once in my life, actually didn't trip over anything.

"Goblins!" Legolas whispered, examining one of the arrows stuck in a nearby skeleton.

Goblins, huh? Guess I should've seen that coming. I mean, I'd been hanging out with the good fairy-tale creatures (or fairy-tale creatures that Walt Disney had stereotyped as good, anyway), so of course there would be _bad_ fairy-tale creatures.

So, once Legolas had said that, Boromir started yelling that we never should have come here, that we should get out and make for the gap of Rohan, wherever that was. Best idea I'd heard all day, really.

Just as I was about to yell something like "amen" or "hear, hear" in agreement with my personal archenemy, I heard a very loud splashing sound coming from behind me. I spun around, only to see the small lake outside explode upward. It took a moment to settle, and floating on top was the biggest squid I'd ever seen.

With a tentacle that was as thick as a telephone pole, it grabbed Frodo by the ankle and lifted him into the air above its mouth.

All of us drew our swords, axes and bows, except for Frodo, who was currently hanging upside down above a set of jaws that could easily crush a Hummer. Which might have been why he was screaming bloody murder.

But anyway, we drew our weapons and began hacking away at the thing. Unfortunately, it had a lot more than ten tentacles, and all of them were trying to kill us.

Sam eventually got Frodo loose, and everyone began to retreat, me included. But there was this _one freakin' tentacle_ that kept trying to grab me, and instead of trying to evade it, I attempted to remove it. I swung my sword as hard as I could, and the tentacle wrapped itself around the blade, wrenched it out of my hand, and dropped it into the water.

"Into the mines!" I heard Gandalf yell.

"Gladly," I said, dashing through the doorway.

Suddenly, the squid-on-steroids hoisted itself out of the water on yet another set of tentacles, and tried to shove itself through the door. It was way too big, so all it did was dislodge the cliff face and send the rubble crashing down around the door, blocking it.

All was completely black for a minute, but then the top of Gandalf's lit up just enough so that we could see a few feet in any direction.

"We now have but once choice. We must face the long dark of Moria," Gandalf said quietly. "Be on your guard. There are older and fouler things than orcs in the deep places of the world."

Wondering just what the heck orcs were, I fell into step behind Aragorn.

"Quietly, now. It's a four-day journey to the other side," Gandalf continued. "Let us hope that our presence will go unnoticed."

What? Four days? _Four whole days_ stuck in a dark mine full of skeletons and God-only-knew what else?

And of course psycho-calamari back there just had to steal my sword.

In short, instead of dying on some godforsaken mountain no one had ever heard of, I was gonna die in some godforsaken _mine_ no one had ever heard of.

Suddenly Caradhras seemed a _lot_ safer.

_Couple things about this chapter (I didn't feel like putting individual author's notes):_

First, for any of you who haven't seen the extended version, there will be parts of it popping up in this fic. I don't actually own it, so they will be somewhat sporadic. If you see any bits of the plot you don't recognize, chances are I don't own it (except for next chapter; that was my idea).

Second, about Alee's theory about the "speak friend and enter" thing: That is exactly what I thought when I first saw the movie. Same goes for many people I know.

Third, um...Like it? Think it's a disasterrific piece of junk I should never have posted? Well, I'm not psychic, so unless you review me, I'll never know.


	5. Overnight in Moria

_It's been almost a month since I've updated this. I'm sorry! But there's been a lot going on, like getting ready for school (registration, student processing, orientation, shopping, check-ups, da da da...you know...). And school is starting up in less than a week (_nooooo!_). Wonderful. That means less time to write and post. (Sob)_

_Anyway, to my wonderful reviewers..._

_**Ningwen:** I'm glad you liked chapter 2 (and the rest of the story)! Don't worry, we're all a little odd in our own ways..._

_**HelmsDeep2234:** Thanks for laughing, and for the encouragement!_

_Remember, anything in this story that is LOTR-related does not belong to me. Now, start reading._

Chapter V (Pointless-ish) 

The first day of our merry little romp through Moria, in a word, sucked. You know how it is when you wake up in the middle of the night to get a midnight snack, or whatever? How the entire house is pitch-dark? You know that between your bedroom and the fridge there's the couch, the bookshelf, the coffee table, plus several other obstacles, and you stumble through the dark just _expecting_ to hit something.

Well, that's what it was like. Except that in this case, instead of furniture, we were evading sharp rocks and very deep holes and chasms. Not to mention the multitude of skeletons, plus all the monsters supposedly lurking about.

That night (or whenever it was when we unanimously decided to take a rest) was even worse. You have no idea how hard it is getting to sleep when you know there are countless creepy things waiting to attack you when you let your guard down.

I woke up once because I heard this really freaky noise. Thinking it was one of those "orcs" Gandalf had mentioned, I got up and tried to run. Before I got ten steps, I tripped over someone.

"What?" he growled sleepily. Judging from the voice, it was Boromir.

"For your information, there's something creepy over there," I said shakily, pointing to where I'd been sleeping.

He sighed audibly. "Where? It's dark. I can't see where you're pointing."

Oh. Right. Oops. "About ten paces to your left," I clarified. "I'm pretty sure it's one of those orc thingies Gandalf was talking about earlier."

Totally awake now, Boromir leaped up, shouting, "Orcs! Wake up! We're under attack!"

Then the others were up, and there were quite a few shouts of "What? Orcs? Where?"

The crystal in Gandalf's staff glowed again, and I pointed to where I'd first heard the noise.

And then it happened again. The same low, rumbling growl I'd heard not five minutes before.

"There it is again!" I said. "Right there! Did you guys hear it? Did you?"

In the dim light, I saw a smile slowly play across Legolas' face. Then he burst our laughing. He looked around, and quickly covered his mouth.

"What's so funny?" I asked him, genuinely confused. "This is hardly the time to be laughing, what with us being under attack and all!"

"We are not under attack," Aragorn said, a hint of a chuckle in his voice. "That is not an orc you hear."

I raised a questioning eyebrow and began, "Then what...?" Before I could finish, Gandalf shone his light over to an area near where I was sleeping, and my question was answered.

Half-hidden behind a good-size boulder was Gimli, still asleep. The noise came again, and this time, I saw that it issued from his mouth. That's right. He was snoring.

"I...um...I..." I couldn't say anything. Oh my God. Oh my freaking God. I couldn't recall an instance in my _entire life_ where I'd been this embarrassed.

"There is nothing to worry about," Gandalf said. "Go back to sleep."

As everyone did, Boromir approached me. "I should just kill you now for being such a nuisance to the Fellowship," he threatened.

"Oh, bite me," I said, giving him the Middle-Finger Salute as I walked back to my spot.

_Sorry if that chapter was kind of short. I'd say the next one is coming soon, but as school is starting on Monday, I don't know when I'm going to be able to post again._

_...Not that anyone's going to notice or anything, considering my sporadic updating schedule..._

_Well, as always, please review!_


	6. Criminally Stupid

_Wow. It's been a while since I've updated, hasn't it? Stupid school's been eating up all my time...actually, not all of it is stupid; my super-awesome math teacher is burning me a copy of his FOTR soundtrack. Whoot! _

_  
Anywho...to the only person who's reviewed me since my last update... _

_  
**Ningwen**: Thanks for reviewing me again! And look! I've updated! (Obviously...) _

_  
All right, I own nothing. But you already knew that. So let's just move on, shall we?_

Chapter VI (Why I am one of the group known as the "Criminally Stupid")

Over the next few days, walking through the dark had become pretty routine. In all honesty, having nothing to look at was kind of boring. So I resorted to the road-trip remedy for boredom: sing one of those dumb little kid songs.

"The ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah," I sang. "The ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah. The ants go marching one by one, the little one stopped to suck his thumb, and they all go marching down, to the ground, to get out, of the rain, boom, boom, boom..."

Everyone stopped and stared at me like I was insane. It felt pretty good to know something everyone else didn't, for once.

"Don't mind me," I said. "Go on."

So we continued in complete silence (except for me, because I was singing). Pretty soon, I had everyone else thinking I was some kind of raving lunatic (and any of my friends would know that that assumption was quite accurate). And, around ten minutes later, it was really obvious why.

"The ants go marching six by six, hurrah, hurrah," I continued. "The ants go marching six by six, hurrah, hurrah. The ants go marching six by six, the little one stopped to pick up sticks, lost his balance, tripped over a precipice, and tumbled into the abyss, never to be seen again..."

Have I ever mentioned that I can be something of a pessimist at times?

I'm sorry, but the holes and canyons all over the place still sort of freaked me out. Remember, I was a big klutz, so one false step and I'd be sent careening to my doom.

I stopped singing after that, and our journey was suddenly a lot less eventful.

Eventually, we came to a fork in the road (three tunnels; that _is_ still a fork, right?). We decided to stop for a while when Gandalf suddenly announced, "I have no memory of this place."

And, considering that the wizard was our guide and leader, this fact was rather disconcerting.

Frodo and Gandalf sat by the tunnel entrances, and the rest of us took shelter under a ledge beneath them. Someone produced a bit of wood, and used one of our torches to start a small campfire.

I sat down between Merry and Pippin, for two reasons. The first was that out of everyone here, they were closest to what could be considered my friends, and two, they were sitting farthest from Boromir.

"Are we lost?" Pippin asked.

"No," Merry replied.

"I think we are," the younger hobbit said. After a pause, he asked, "Merry?"

"What?" he asked.

"I'm hungry," Pippin complained.

Come to think of it, so was I. Over the past five days, I'd eaten less than I usually did in one meal.

"Man, I'd seriously kill for a cheeseburger right about now," I stated.

Pippin scooted away from me.

"Oh, come _on_, Pippin," I said, mock-surprised. "Do you honestly think I would actually stoop so low as to kill you, my friend, over a mere _cheeseburger_?"

"Well, no, I guess not," he said, scooting back. "Even though I don't know what a cheeseburger is."

"I'd kill _you_ for the Dr. Pepper," I added as an afterthought.

It took me almost an hour to convince him that I was kidding.

After that, it was kind of silent. I tried to eavesdrop on Frodo and Gandalf's conversation (something about somebody named Gollum). It got boring, so I dozed off.

Well, more like fell totally asleep. The next thing I knew, Merry was shaking me and saying, "He's remembered!" rather excitedly. It took me almost a minute to realize he was referring to Gandalf and our little "fork-in-the-road" predicament.

"No," Gandalf said, his voice echoing slightly as he entered the tunnel on the right. "But the air doesn't smell so foul down here. When in doubt, Meriadoc, always follow your nose."

So we all got up and followed Gandalf into the tunnel and down a flight of stairs. What we saw on the other end was...unexpected, to say the least.

"Let me risk a little more light," Gandalf said as we reached the bottom. His staff suddenly glowed brighter, and partially illuminated the chamber around us.

"Behold the great realm and Dwarf city of Dwarrodelf," Gandalf said dramatically.

And, what can I say? We beheld.

We were now standing in a chamber so vast you could probably have lost a cathedral in it. Even with the combined light of Gandalf's staff and Aragorn and Boromir's torches, the ceiling wasn't visible at all. We stood at the beginning of a wide avenue that ran the length of the chamber.

But what caught everyone's attention were the ornately carved pillars that lined the avenue on both sides. Each was maybe ten feet in diameter, and seemed to have been cut out of the mountain itself.

"Well, there's an eye-opener, and no mistake," Sam breathed.

"No, you think?" I shot back, still staring up at the pillars in awe.

We started along the avenue, still totally amazed. Suddenly there was a sharp gasp, and the sound of heavily booted feet running.

"Gimli!" Gandalf shouted.

I turned and saw Gimli, who had, by the way, totally ignored Gandalf, running toward a sunlit room to the left. Seeing natural light for the first time in days and thinking it might be a way out, I followed him. So did everyone else.

Unfortunately, it wasn't an exit. It was just a regular, skeleton-infested room with a hole in the ceiling for light. Oh, yeah, there was also a big, stone casket-looking thing in the center of the room, which we found Gimli crying over.

"_Here lies Balin, son of Fundin, lord of Moria_," Gandalf read. "He is dead then. It is as I feared."

"Friend of yours?" I asked the distraught Gimli. He ignored me and kept blubbering.

Gandalf turned around and gave me The Look.

"Shutting up," I said quickly. I did so.

Gimli started muttering incoherently, and Gandalf picked a dusty old book out of a skeleton's hands and opened it.

"_They have taken the bridge and the second hall_," the wizard read. "_We have barred the gates, but cannot hold them for long_."

I peeked over Gandalf's shoulder to get a look at the book. But instead of seeing letters on the page, I just saw a bunch of symbols and lines. Okay, then.

"_The ground shakes_," Gandalf continued. "_Drums, drums in the deep. We cannot get out. A shadow moves in the dark. We cannot get out. ... They are coming._"

I looked away and saw Pippin examining a skeleton that sat on the side of a well. The hobbit pulled on an arrow that stuck out of its rib cage, and the whole thing fell down the well, dragging a metal bucket with it. This caused a little more than enough noise to wake the dead.

Well, so much for our presence going unnoticed...

Gandalf snapped the book shut and turned on Pippin, yet again wearing The Look.

There was a long minute of dead silence. Gandalf was glaring daggers at Pippin, and the poor hobbit was fidgeting and looking for the nearest exit.

"Fool of a Took," Gandalf said to the frightened Pippin. "Throw yourself in next time and rid us of your stupidity!"

Ooh, burn.

_Boom_.

It was faint, but everyone heard it.

_Boom. Boom._

There it was again, this time slightly louder. And from being in band for four years (not to mention having a best friend who was a percussionist in band), I definitely recognized the sound. Drums.

The beat got steadily louder and faster. Soon we could hear harsh, shrieking voices not too far away.

"Orcs!" Legolas said.

And this time, it wasn't a false alarm. We really were under attack.

And my sword and I were currently separated by a hundred miles of mine and a three-foot-thick rock wall.

In other words, right then things were looking rather bad for me.

And to think, a week ago, all I'd had to worry about was my next math test.

_Please be kind and give a donation to the Review Kaisa Fund. Thank you. I'll update again when I can._


	7. Close Encounters of the Ugly, Evil Kind

_Hey, look! I'm actually updating before the end of the semester! Go me! And I got five more reviews! That puts me into double digits! Thank you to all reviewers, and to whoever read but was too lazy to review (it's okay, I do it all the time). _

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**IloveJesus7930**: Thanks much for the review! _

_**Ningwen**: Wow, seems like I'm getting a constant reviewer here. You have no idea how happy that makes me! _

_**FEAR**-**THE**-**FLUFF**: Thank you. I could tell about the sugar-high...you sound like some of my friends... _

_**huntersgurl34**: Well, I'm glad you like it. Please continue! _

_**Morwen**: Glad you think it's funny. But...um...well, just scroll down to the warnings...  
_

_All right. For the umpteenth time, Lord of the Rings is © J.R.R. Tolkien and New Line Cinema and all those people, none of whom is named Kaisa Enara. Just so we're all very clear on that...  
_

_This chapter comes with a couple warnings: This is the longest chapter in the history of the universe. Okay, maybe it's not that bad, but it sure feels like it. I strongly suggest you grab some popcorn and trade in your computer chair for something more comfortable, because this may take a while. If you're reading this exclusively because it's funny, please bear with me. I'm afraid the humor level in this one chapter takes a dramatic plunge, but I've edited and tried to lighten the mood in spots. I am truly sorry; the next chapter will be funnier.  
_

_Okay. I think that's it. Shutting up now._

Chapter VII (The longest chapter in existence) 

"Get back!" Aragorn yelled. "Stay close to Gandalf!"

"No," I quipped as I dashed behind the wizard. "We're about to be assaulted by a small army of monsters, and I'm completely unarmed, so you know what? I think I'll stay out in the open so I can be _brutally murdered_!"

Then I noticed that the hobbits were also using Gandalf as their human shield, but with a major difference: they had their weapons out. And Frodo's, oddly enough, was glowing a brilliant blue.

I wasn't even going to ask. I could live without knowing. Actually, I really didn't care too much that the weapon looked like it had been exposed to nuclear waste.

_Heh. Frodo's sword is radioactive_, I thought. And despite all that was going on, part of me actually found that funny.

Over Gandalf's shoulder, I saw Boromir run outside, in order to grab the door and shut it. I also saw the two black arrows that narrowly missed his face. Darn.

"They have a cave troll," he informed us as he pulled the door shut.

Wonderful. That meant even _more_ to worry about.

Legolas began tossing axes to Aragorn and Boromir, who used them to bar the door. But as soon as they had gotten them secured, someone on the other side tried to break them down.

"Let them come," Gimli growled from his place on Balin's coffin. "There is one Dwarf yet in Moria who still draws breath!"

The orcs began hitting the doors with spears and axes, resulting in small holes for Legolas, and Aragorn (who had almost miraculously produced a bow and arrows), to shoot them through.

Suddenly, with a loud crash, the doors fell. And through them leaped four dozen squat creatures, each with green or brown skin, jagged yellow teeth, serpentine eyes, and multiple face-piercings, screeching at the top of their lungs.

So _those_ were orcs. Ugly little things.

And just like that, the battle had begun.

One orc rushed at me with a spear, and by that time, Gandalf and the rest had moved away to fight their own separate battles. It was just me and this orc, and I had no idea what to do.

By the time I'd spotted the axe on the floor, the orc was less than two feet away. I bent to pick it up, and by that time, I could feel its hot, smelly breath on my face.

I looked up, only to see a spearhead pointed right between my eyes.

Without thinking, I grabbed the axe and swung it upward, effectively slicing the orc in half. The right half toppled onto me, oozing black blood onto my shirt, sweater, jeans, and hair.

_Yuuuuuuuuuuck..._

The axe I held was way heavier than my sword, and there was orc blood dripping into my right eye, but I managed to pick off five or six more orcs. Unfortunately, not without sustaining a few injuries. They were, for the most pat, small cuts and bruises; they hurt, but weren't anything I couldn't survive. One blow, however, had landed on my upper right arm, reopening and worsening the wound from Boromir's sword.

After maybe half an hour, the ten of us had killed off every orc in the room. It felt pretty cool knowing that I'd helped, but the corpses all over the place were kinda freaking me out.

"Whew," I sighed. "Glad that's over."

And then the front wall, and what was left of the door, flew apart.

Oh, right. The cave troll. Had forgotten about him for a minute.

He (at least I _assume_ it was a he) was over twice as tall as I was, and on the flabby side as well. He had grayish-blue skin, carried a hammer that looked as though it weighed 200 pounds, and wore a loincloth and a spiked collar with a thick chain. He was being led around by an orc holding the chain.

Legolas shot the troll in the shoulder, and it made a sound surprisingly similar to Gimli's snores.

I, being closest to the orc holding the chain, swung my axe forward and decapitated it. Then I turned and made for a pillar at the far end of the room. Once there, I hid behind it and stayed there.

Go ahead. Call me a coward if you want to. But this was my first time being faced with real-life, kill-or-be-killed battle. Sure, I'd hacked up tons of monsters on my PS2, but this place was not a video game. Here, if you got hit, your life meter didn't go down; you bled. And if you died here, you _stayed_ dead. No extra lives, no "continue" option, no cheat codes, just death. And I really, really, _really_ did not want to die.

So I just stood there, axe in hand (you know, just in case), and watched.

Merry, Pippin, and Frodo had the same idea as me, but they chose a pillar much nearer to the troll; not too bright.

Gimli, still on Balin's tomb, threw his axe (with surprisingly good aim) right into the troll's chest, close to its right armpit. The axe, instead of doing any actual damage, just sort of stuck there.

The troll didn't appreciate that too much, and swung its hammer downward onto Gimli. The Dwarf, thankfully, saw that coming and leapt away mere milliseconds before the hammer could hit him. The lower half of the tomb was demolished.

Then Gimli got up, another axe in hand, and killed another orc that had gotten in. The troll swung at him again, but only hit two more orcs that happened to be in the way.

I turned my attention to Legolas, who quickly shot the troll with two arrows at the same time. Without even looking to see whether they'd hit their target, he dropped his bow, whipped out two long knives, and sliced up three attacking orcs.

I looked over at Gandalf. He was standing near the door, hacking up any orcs that tried to get in. Not only were these things ugly, but they obviously weren't too smart, either, since they just kept on trying to gain entry.

I looked back to Legolas. The troll had decided to go after him, and was now using the chain as a weapon. It swung it at Legolas, who easily dodged it and grabbed his bow. The chain wrapped around the pillar Legolas had been standing in front of.

Then Legolas (being the smart Elf that he was...and cute...and hot...uh, sorry, got sidetracked there for a second) used the chain like a tightrope and ran up it until he was standing on the troll itself. And in one fluid movement, he fitted an arrow into his bow and shot it, point-blank, at the troll's head.

It bounced off. The arrow, I mean, in case there was any confusion.

So we were up against a troll that couldn't be killed by an arrow shot from less than a foot away. Now I was really happy about my decision to hide.

I guess I missed a few things while praising myself for making such a good choice, because the next thing I saw was Aragorn stabbing at the troll with this big-ass spear. I noted that the troll was trying to get something behind Aragorn.

That something was Frodo, who was lying on the ground and not looking so good.

Pretty soon the troll got tired of Aragorn, and punched him so hard, the man went flying through the air. He stopped when his body became acquainted with a pillar. Aragorn fell to the ground and didn't move.

I hoped to God he was only unconscious.

Frodo crawled over to Aragorn. And the troll picked up the spear that Aragorn had dropped and took a stab at Frodo.

It missed; the spear hit the pillar above the hobbit's head.

So the troll tried again, but with no luck. This time the spear hit the wall about six inches to Frodo's left.

But the troll didn't give up. It stabbed a third time, and this time, the spear found its mark. The troll let out a roar of triumph.

That was it. I couldn't watch anymore. I snapped my eyes shut and tried to think of something else. My unfinished math homework, _Abarat_, what might have happened to my backpack when I got here, anything. _Anything_ to distract me from the truth, from the single image my mind kept focusing on.

In that image was Frodo, his eyes wide with shock as he stared at the spear in his chest. Then blood would start to seep from the wound, and the whole thing would end as Frodo took a last, shuddering breath and died in a pool of his own blood.

I felt tears sliding down my cheeks, and let go of the axe to wipe them away.

_Why are you even crying over him?_ I asked myself angrily. _You've known him for what, four, five days? That's not even a week! And besides, for all you know you just hit your head a bit too hard, and this is all just a dream. One big hallucination._

True as that may have been, I kept crying, barely even noticing the crashes, thuds, and clanks in the background.

Minutes later, I heard another roar from the troll, and the loudest crash I'd ever heard. It surprised me so much that my eyes shot open and I risked a look around the pillar.

There, lying motionless in the middle of the room was the cave troll, a single arrow in its neck.

Before I knew it, I had crossed the room. I, along with Sam, Merry, Pippin, Gandalf, Boromir, Legolas, Gimli, and Aragorn (who had apparently come to), now stood in front of Frodo's body, which lay facedown on the floor.

"Oh, no," Aragorn breathed, flipping the dead hobbit over.

But guess what?

The dead hobbit groaned. And _sat up_.

I swear, if I hadn't been so happy I'd have died of shock.

"He's alive," Sam said.

_Thank you, Captain Obvious_, I thought, still barely believing it myself.

"I'm not hurt," Frodo panted, clutching his chest. "I'm all right."

"You should be dead," said Aragorn. His expression mirrored everyone else's: shock, amazement, and most of all, confusion. "That spear would've skewered a wild boar."

More like _several_ wild boars, but I agreed with Aragorn. It was physically impossible for Frodo to be alive right now. Unless, of course, that this really _was_ all a dream.

"I think," said Gandalf. "That there is more to this hobbit than meets the eye." He, unlike everyone else, was smiling, as if he knew exactly what was going on and found it funny that we didn't.

Um, _hello_, Gandalf? Where have you _been_ the past five minutes? Of _course_ there's more to Frodo that meets the eye; he lived through being turned into a hobbit-kebab by that troll!

Then, for some odd reason, Frodo began unbuttoning his shirt. Beneath the dirty white material, I glimpsed a coat of silver mail. So maybe that was what saved him. It certainly didn't _look_ like ordinary chain mail...

"Mithril!" Gimli gasped. "You are full of surprises, Master Baggins!"

In the distance, I heard a noise. Several noises, actually. And judging from the way everyone's heads snapped toward the door, so did they.

Gandalf spoke first, in a hurried whisper. "To the bridge of Khazad-dûm!"

We ran out the back door, down another passage similar to the first. Except that this one was full of orcs. And more kept coming in. Pretty soon, we were surrounded. I had no idea how we were going to survive this one.

Legolas drew an arrow from his quiver, and I realized that I was weaponless once more. I cursed myself for my extreme idiocy.

Then a loud growl was heard, followed by an intense blast of heat.

And then the orcs did something unexpected.

They bolted.

"What is this new devilry?" Boromir asked, sounding as scared as I felt.

"It's got to be something pretty bad," I answered. "To scare off an army of orcs."

Gandalf looked at us. "A Balrog," he said slowly. "A demon of the ancient world. This foe is beyond any of you... Run!"

We continued on, doing just that: running. And we kept going until we were through a large archway. Boromir, who was in the lead, nearly fell to his death, as the ground stopped abruptly just inside the archway. If it hadn't been for Legolas, Boromir would be falling toward certain death.

Oh, well. I guess even Legolas wasn't perfect.

"Lead them on, Aragorn. The bridge is near," Gandalf said to, well, Aragorn. "Do as I say! Swords are of no more use here!"

Oh, okay. So at least it didn't really matter that I didn't have one.

So Aragorn led us down a long flight of stairs that was off to the side. A long flight of stairs with absolutely _zero_ railing.

Do you have any idea how scary that was? We were running down a flight of stairs that seemingly went on forever, with no rails, and we were so high up that we couldn't even see the bottom of where we were.

Suddenly, we stopped, most likely because of the three-foot gap in the stairs. Legolas stepped forward and jumped it with little effort. Then he called out to Gandalf, who did the same.

Next, Boromir grabbed both Merry and Pippin, and leaped over. Some of the steps crumbled away, making the three-foot gap a five-foot gap.

But wait, there's more. Just then, an arrow whizzed by my face and landed on the stairs above me.

We were being shot at. Fantastic. Just fan-freaking-tastic.

Aragorn picked up Sam and tossed him over the gap, and was about to do the same with Gimli. But—

"Nobody tosses a Dwarf!" Gimli protested, backing up and taking a running jump. He almost didn't make it, but at the last second, Legolas grabbed his beard and pulled him up, resulting in a) the stairs losing maybe another foot off them, and b) an amusing shout of "No! Not the beard!" from Gimli.

I decided I would jump next. I figured that the gap wasn't going to get any smaller. And besides, I could make it.

I hoped.

So I backed up, said a quick prayer, took off running, and leaped.

Time seemed almost to slow as I went through the air. There was the edge of the gap. Closer...closer...I was going to make it...

Someone took their hand off the slow-mo button, and time resumed its normal speed. I slammed into the side of the stairs, and quickly grabbed on. Because I hit the wall so hard, the wind was knocked out of me, and my hold on the edge loosened. Before I knew it, I was hanging on by my fingertips, and they were slipping.

Oh, holy crap, I was gonna die. For real this time.

But then, miraculously, a hand caught mine, and pulled me back up. Déjà vu struck as I found myself looking into the deep blue eyes of my Elven rescuer once again.

_Man_, I thought. _A girl could_ really _get used to this_.

"Thank you," I managed. "Yeah, um... thanks."

"Well, I doubt I could live with myself if I let a beautiful lady such as yourself perish, Arwenamin," said Legolas, a small smile on his lips.

He was just saying that. He was _so_ just saying that. But hey, even If it _was_ nothing more than empty flattery, it was still probably the nicest thing anyone had ever said to me (family not included).

And what about that nickname he'd called me by? "Arwenamin?" What did _that_ mean? ...Oh, who cared? At least he liked me enough to give me a nickname. Meaning that, if nothing else, he considered me a friend. Which was definitely a good start.

I was suddenly jerked out of my reverie by a sharp pain in my leg. I looked down and was met with the sight of torn denim and blood. Apparently, an arrow had grazed my leg while I was off on Cloud 9.

Then, yet another arrow blew past. It had come out of nowhere, and I jumped back in surprise. Of course, the stairs were only so wide, and there was very little space to jump.

Fortunately for me, just as I felt one sneaker slip off the edge, there was Legolas' hand, grasping mine and so saving my life for like the third time.

What would I do without that guy? ...Er, _elf_?

What happened next would normally take quite a while to put on paper, so I'll just give the L.S.S. (meaning Long Story Short):

Crash from behind, Frodo and Aragorn jump, stairs behind us die, we run more, and finally arrive at the bridge. (There, ten minutes' worth of events in exactly twenty words. Hah.)

All of us took off across the bridge. Like the stairs, except flat, it was narrow, rail-less, and all in all a really stupid place for anyone in their right mind to run.

But, then again, how interesting would my life be if I were in my right mind?

Once I was about three quarters of the way across, there came a deafening roar from behind me, plus a blast of heat that made Arizona in the summer feel like a refrigerator.

The sane, reasonable part of me told me to just keep on running, and the crazy, slightly stranger part told me to turn around and look. After a short mental battle, curiosity won out, and I looked.

There at the beginning of the bridge was Gandalf, who was busy staring down Death itself.

Death itself was a hulking mass of shadows, fire, horns, and looked like it was having a bad day.

Did I happen to mention the Death itself came complete with wings, flaming sword, and was about ten times my height?

So, that was the Balrog.

_Oh, holy fu—dge_, I thought. _We are gonna freaking die_.

And then the wizard was saying something, barely audible over the sound of crackling fire.

"—Servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the Flame of Anor," Gandalf intoned, staff glowing again. "Dark fire shall not avail you, Flame of Udún! Go back to the Shadow!"

I, meanwhile, was having a hard time trying to figure out what all of that meant. So far I'd gathered something along the lines of, "Gandalf is some kind of crazy pyro; now might be a good time to back away slowly." Although I had a feeling that this was not it at all, and that I was just missing something.

Gandalf now took his sword and staff, held them together in his hands, and raised them above his head.

"YOU...SHALL NOT...PASS!" he roared, bringing the staff and sword down on the bridge in front of him. With a blinding flash of light, all the stone in front of the wizard crumbled and fell away, taking Death its—er, that is to say, the Balrog, with it.

"Yeah!" I shouted, pumping my fist in the air. "Go Gandalf! Whoot!"

The old wizard wore a quizzical expression as he turned to face us, probably because of my exuberant reaction. Thankfully, what I said was not worthy of The Look, but Gandalf turned in my direction and began to say something.

What it was, I'll never know, because at that moment, a flaming whip shot out of the darkness below and wound its way round Gandalf's ankle. Then, its unseen holder (whom I was sure was our old buddy the Balrog, back for Round Two) began reeling it in, dragging our guide and leader back to the end of the broken bridge. This left him dangling off the edge, clinging to the stone, as I had not fifteen minutes earlier.

Without a word, I dashed forward; I was all too eager to help, after knowing exactly how scary it was to be hanging off the edge of something, about to drop into the abyss. But I didn't get very far at all before a strong hand clamped down on my shoulder and yanked me backward. I twisted around (no easy task, mind you, due to the death-grip that was being applied to my shoulder), to see that the hand's owner was Aragorn.

"Do not run mindlessly into danger," he warned. The man's expression was stern, though I could tell he wanted to help Gandalf, too.

And he wasn't the only one. Frodo, like me, was trying to get out there. He, like me, was being restrained, but in his case, by Boromir. But he, _un_like me, had absolutely no hope of getting free, since Boromir was taking no chances and had the poor hobbit in a full nelson. Frodo was, quite obviously, not too happy about being manhandled (or maybe I should say, "hobbit-handled") in this manner, and was kicking at Boromir and screaming about Gandalf needing help. All, unfortunately, to no avail.

Gandalf quickly surveyed this scene, _way_ too calmly for someone whose life was quite literally hanging in the balance. He uttered three words, his voice a whisper so low I could barely hear it: "...Fly, you fools!"

And with that, Gandalf the Grey released his hold on the end of the bridge, tumbling down into the abyss of Khazad-Dûm.

A long, anguished wail escaped Frodo, and I found myself screaming along with him.

Suddenly, I was shoved unceremoniously out of Aragorn's hands as another arrow sped toward us.

I spied the others heading up a short flight of stairs to what I hoped what the exit from this God-awful mine. I followed, not wanting to spend another second there.

As I stumbled up the stairs myself, it began to register in my brain: Gandalf, our leader and guide, was dead. Meaning that we now had nothing but a vague idea of where we were going, and no knowledge whatsoever of the dangers that lay ahead.

And in case anyone forgot, I _still_ didn't have anything in the way of a weapon.

Hoo boy. Could we _get_ any more screwed?

_Right. Thank you all for surviving that. Next chapter will be more humorous, as well as shorter._

_Now, since I'm sure many of you are authors yourselves, you would know that reviews make me happy. So, please review me._

_Thank you._


	8. On the Banks of Nimrodel

_All right! Chapter eight! I found some time to update! Go me!_

_To my oh-so-awesome reviewers:_

_**Ningwen**: You again? Just kidding, it's really great to hear from you._

_**kurleyhawk2**: Working as fast as I can...don't worry..._

_**IloveJesus7390**: Oh, look! Another name I've seen before! Thanks for reviewing me again!_

_**DDR** **rox**: Thank you very much. And yes, DDR is fuuun..._

_Right, I can't be bothered to write up a disclaimer right now, so we're skipping over that. Um, This chapter is anchored mostly in book-verse, so if you haven't read it, just deal. But please don't think I made it all up. I'm not that creative._

_And now, on to our newest, not to mention decidedly shorter, chapter._

Chapter VIII (In which we dip briefly into Book-verse)

The first thing I noticed upon exiting Moria was the sunlight. Bright, zillion-watt sunlight illuminating everything and attempting to melt my retinas.

But once my eyes had adjusted to the light, I stopped to take in the scenery and breathe fresh air for the first time in four days.

It couldn't have been more beautiful. Well, not, at least, in comparison to Moria, which was now a synonym for Hell in my dictionary.

It being mid-January, the surrounding mountains were all capped with snow, and some also lay at our feet. Off ahead of us was a deep green forest. Birds were chirping, and in the distance, I heard the sound of rushing water.

All of it would have been perfect, if not for the small sobs of the hobbits. I was about ready to cry, too.

Gandalf had just bitten the dust. As the realization of this came up and smacked me for the second time, I lowered myself numbly onto a nearby rock, silently praying to anyone who'd listen for it not to be true.

I mean, how could it be? Gandalf was a _wizard_, dammit! He couldn't just be _dead_! He was probably levitating himself out of that chasm right now, and any second he'd burst through the door and be all like, "Psych! Oh, you guy should have seen the looks on your faces!"

But then, Gandalf never really seemed like a practical joker...

"Legolas! Get them up," Aragorn said, his tone more commanding than I'd ever heard it. Then, in a much gentler voice, "On your feet, Sam."

Then, the most unexpected thing happened. Boromir's voice rang out in defiance of Aragorn's order, with, "Give them a moment, for pity's sake!"

Wait. Back up. _Boromir_? Acting decent? Even somewhat...perish the thought..._human_? Needless to say, I nearly experienced heart failure from the shock.

"By nightfall these hills will be swarming with orcs," Aragorn stated coolly. "We must reach the woods of Lothlórien. Come, Boromir. Legolas, Gimli, get them up!"

Well, at least _Aragorn_ seemed to be enjoying himself, playing Leader, and all. He pulled my up off my rock, and I didn't complain.

"So...Lothlórien, huh?" I asked as we set off, making a brave stab at conversation. "Where's that? Why are we going there?"

I was promptly ignored.

"Fine, _be_ that way," I muttered under my breath.

We continued on at a quick pace, mostly in silence, and after a while we came to a forest. About a mile in, more or less, our way was blocked by a swift-flowing stream going right through our path. We stopped.

"Here is Nimrodel," said Legolas, breaking the collective silence that had lasted for almost an hour. "Of this stream the Elves made many songs long ago. Still we sing them in the North, remembering the rainbow on its falls, and the golden flowers that floated in its foam. All is dark now and the Bridge of Nimrodel is broken down. But crossing on foot would be better, for it is said that the water is healing to the weary."

Well, _that_ was good news, at least. Especially considering that I hadn't slept in like two days, and I was about ready to drop. Honestly. Right then, I'd have gladly sold my soul to my algebra teacher him—er, that is to say the _devil_ himself for a chance to crawl into a nice warm bed and sleep for a solid week.

Anyway, Legolas stepped in and began crossing. The water wasn't too deep; it only came up to the Elf's calves.

I walked up to the bank, about to get in, when I caught a glimpse of a face looking up at me through the water.

It was a girl, about my age, who looked as though she'd spent the past week in a landfill. A booby-trapped landfill, by the looks of all the cuts, bruises, and blood on her skin. Green eyes shone through the layer of dirt and ash on her face, the skin of which was tan underneath. A large black smear covered her right cheek. A mass of thick black curls, pulled back into a ponytail, was so tangled that it looked like it couldn't have been harmed by scissors. And that was about the time it struck me:

_I'm looking at my_ reflection!

Well, hopefully this Lothlórien place had someplace to take a bath. Not to mention about three gallons of Herbal Essences and a solid steel hairbrush.

Without a second thought, I dashed into Nimrodel, screamed, and dashed right back out. Legolas could have at least said something about how freaking _cold_ it was!

I felt the effects of the "healing waters" almost immediately. I was still pretty tired, just not tired enough to sell my soul to Mr. Moon—um, _Satan_ on exchange for some sleep.

So I just gritted my teeth, plunged back in, and half-ran, half-swam through the frigid stream so fast I actually mad it out before Legolas.

Eventually, everyone else got across, and we stopped to take a rest on the grassy bank. I flopped down on my back, and stared up at the late afternoon sunlight blinking through the treetops, and listed to the birds, the river, the...

Wait. I sat up and looked around. "What was that? It sounded like somebody...singing. A woman."

"So, you hear the voice of Nimrodel," Legolas commented.

Okay, now I was confused (_again_; it was beginning to become my default emotion here in Middle-earth). "The voice of...what now?" I asked. "I thought Nimrodel was the stream."

"I will sing you a song of the maiden Nimrodel, who bore the same name as the stream beside which she lived long ago," Legolas said. "It is a fair song in our woodland tongue, but this is how it runs in the Westron speech, as some in Rivendell now sing it."

And so, Legolas began his little ballad:

_An Elven-maid there was of old_,

_A shining star by day_;

_Her mantle white was hemmed with gold_,

_Her shoes of silver-grey_...

After just those four lines, the Elf had me captivated. Not by the song, really, but his voice. The song? Screw the song. Screw Nimrodel and her silver-grey shoes. All I cared about right then was the sweet, soft tenor that was my point-eared companion.

And really, his was the best voice I'd heard in, well, _ever_. If Legolas were to step onto the stage of American Idol right now, he'd leave Simon Cowell completely speechless (a first, and a welcome one at that), Randy Jackson choking on his Slim-Fast, and Paula Abdul totally in love...although that last one might not have as much to do with the voice...

Compared to Legolas, Justin Guarini sucks. Well, he sucks anyway, but... Clay Aiken didn't come close. Even Ruben Studdard didn't hold a candle to him.

Then Legolas' voice faltered, and he stopped. "I cannot sing any more," he apologized. "That is but a part, for I have forgotten much."

"S'all right, Legolas," I said. "It was great."

The Elf smiled. I hoped he hadn't noticed that I'd completely zoned out during his performance.

"Well, I daresay we have rested long enough," Aragorn said. "We must go before any orcs pick up our trail."

Point taken. We started off again.

"Stay close, young hobbits," Gimli whispered to...the hobbits, obviously. "They say a great sorceress lives in these woods. An Elf-witch of terrible power. Those who walk into her woods...are never seen again."

Ooh, goody. I hoped Aragorn knew what he was doing. I was too young to disappear and never be seen again.

"Well, here's _one_ Dwarf she won't ensnare so easily," Gimli continued. "I have the eyes of a hawk, and the ears of a fox."

Before I could blink, we were surrounded by Elves. Each of them had a bow and arrow trained on us. It vaguely reminded me of my oh-so-pleasant arrival into Middle-earth.

"Oh, Gimli, I'm sure you saw that coming, then?" I asked, fully back in sarcastic-mode. "Or...maybe you heard it?"

He didn't respond.

Then one of the Elves (the leader, I presumed) stepped forward. "The Dwarf breathes so loud, we could have shot him in the dark," he smirked.

Despite the fact that I was surrounded by sharp, pointy objects that could kill me any second, I laughed. I noticed that no one else was, so I shut up. Then I quickly studied this new Elf.

He was the only one of them not wielding a bow, but a quiver of white-feathered arrows was strapped to his back nonetheless. His silver-grey clothing looked to be of better quality than that of his companions' (which may or may not have signified rank). There was an overly cocky air about him; an arrogance so obvious it was practically visible. He wasn't bad looking, either. Dark eyes, whitish-blond hair...a real hottie, but Legolas still beat him out in my opinion. But best of all, Aragorn seemed to know him.

Our leader approached the Elf and inclined his head in a sort of mini-bow. "Haldir of Lórien," he started, then switched to words that were completely alien to me (I assumed Elvish).

Gimli, who for the past minute had been silently fuming, spoke up. "Aragorn, these woods are perilous! We should go back!"

The Elf, whose name I now knew to be Haldir, looked at us with a totally unreadable expression. "You have entered the realm of the Lady of the Wood," he said evenly. "You cannot go back. Come. She is waiting."

He called off his archers, and I was left to ponder whether bringing us here was one of Aragorn's brightest ideas, as we were led deep into the heart of the wood.

_Well, then. That would be the end of Chapter Eight. What did you think? Really good? Totally disasteriffic?_

_Leave me a review and let me know, because I can't read minds._

_That would be pretty cool, though..._


	9. First Night in Lothlorien

_You people have no idea how happy I am. And not just because of the obvious (no school today), but I have over twenty reviews now! And it's all thanks to you! I love you so much! Ahem...sorry 'bout that..._

_**Ningwen**: I'm so glad you've been reviewing like every chapter. You're so wonderful. If I knew who you were and how to get to you, I'd give you a hug!_

_**mellonim**: Wow. Thank you so much for all the praise. And the cookie. Cookies are yummy..._

_**RenegadeKitsune**: Thaaank yooou...!_

_Right. Boromir-haters of the world, rejoice, for I am quite mean to him in this chapter, and part of the next. Enjoy it while you can, though, because it's going to be pretty short-lived. I hope you continue to enjoy the story afterward, though._

_Anyway, here's chapter nine._

Chapter IX (A lot of stuff happens without advancing the plot one bit...)

It was night by the time we reached Caras Galadhon, which was, as Haldir explained to us, the city of the Elves here in Lothlórien. There wasn't much to look at on the ground because, again according to Haldir, the Elves here were for the most part arboreal (whoo, big word...feelin' smart). Meaning that they mostly lived in the trees.

And the trees? Another surprise. Shod with silvery bark, the smallest had to be like two hundred feet tall, and the largest...the largest I couldn't even see the top of.

"Whoa," I breathed. "They're like redwoods, only not, you know, like...red."

Whoops. Can we say "Blonde Moment?"

This time, only Haldir paused to stare at me (I guessed that after a while, Frodo and the rest had gotten used to my, um, idiosyncrasies).

I put on the most innocent, angelic smile I could manage, and said to our Elven captor type person, "It's part of my charm. You'll learn to love me." Then as an afterthought: "That or have some kind of psychotic episode...kidding, kidding! Jeez, doesn't anyone around here have a sense of humor?!"

Haldir was silent, and took us to one tree, taller than the others, with a silver staircase winding up its trunk. Subsequently, he began leading us up those stairs.

"So," I said after a while. "Are we there yet?"

"No," Haldir said, continuing upward.

Then I got an idea. "Are we there yet?"

"No."

"Are we there yet?"

"No."

"Are we there yet?"

"NO!"

This time everyone else joined Haldir.

"Sorry," I said. "I just wanted to see how long it took everybody to snap. My own twisted little attempt to lighten the mood. Or...uh...something like that. I don't know. But no harm, no foul, right?"

Everyone was quiet, and we continued up the stairs, until, finally, we _were_ there.

We now stood on a large platform built onto the boughs of the tree, and on that was built what looked like a small palace, made of silver and glass.

"What are we doing here?" I whispered to Haldir.

"I was told to bring your Fellowship before my Lord Celeborn and Lady Galadriel of the Golden Wood," he answered.

And then, just as I was wondering why this place was referred to as the Golden Wood with all its silver motif, two Elves, one man and one woman, descended the palace's front steps and stood before us.

The man, Lord Celeborn, was clad all in grey, the same color, in fact, of his eyes. And although his hair was almost pure white, he really looked no older than thirty-something.

The Lady Galadriel also looked relatively young. Long blonde hair flowed in waves down her back, and it seemed like stars were reflected in her blue eyes (yes, I realize that was the epitome of corny romance-novel lingo, but that was the only way to put it). She wore a queenly white dress, and a brooch of pearl and silver.

As soon as he saw them, Haldir bowed deeply and departed.

"Nine there are here, yet not all the same nine that set out from Rivendell," Celeborn said. "Tell me, where is Gandalf? For I much desire to speak with him."

Before any of us could say anything, Galadriel spoke: "He has fallen into shadow."

Right. Now that she had instilled in me a case of the unholy creeps... I mean really! How did she _know_ that?!

"The quest stands upon the edge of a knife," the Lady went on grimly. "Stray but a little and it will fail, to the ruin of all."

Oh, yeah. Definitely freaky...

"Yet hope remains, while the company is true," she continued. "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Go now and rest, for you are weary with sorrow and much toil. Tonight, you will sleep in peace."

Okay, time to go. I whirled around, about to make for the staircase and away from Galadriel. That woman scared me. But then, a thought struck me.

_And who might you be?_

I froze in mid-step. The problem with the thought was that it hadn't been mine. It had been Galadriel's. If I could have been considered scared before, I was now full out terrified.

_Hm...interesting_, Galadriel thought, mentally scrutinizing me. I squirmed. _It seems as though you have a part to play yet, young one... Welcome to Lothlórien, Alee of Arizona._

After the whole scary-telepathy-thing with Galadriel, things went okay. All of us took the grueling hike back downstairs, and were separated by some Elves and each led to our own baths. I actually cried for joy at the prospect of it.

Once in, I located a comb and some floral-smelling stuff that was probably some form or another of soap or shampoo. And so I spent the next two-and-a-half hours of my existence combing the dirt, knots, and God-only-knew-what-else out of my hair.

It hurt, and I ended up busting four of the comb's teeth, but the end result was worth it. My hair now hung down past my shoulders, nearly straight after my combing through it so much.

Now I stood around there, wearing a white dress (my regular clothes had been taken away to get washed), admiring my clean and not-tangled hair, when the smell of freshly cooked food wafted over. I followed it blindly, looking like some kind of zombie. I was starving. I'd spent the past week living off carefully rationed bits of dried meat and fruit and stuff. I was so hungry that, had it been offered to me, I might have eaten cafeteria food.

...Well, okay. I wasn't as hungry as all _that_. But, you know, pretty close.

I found my group parked at a long table laden with all manner of meats, fruits, veggies, cheeses, and breads. Two words: Thank. God.

There was one seat left at the end of the table, which was right across from Legolas. Yay! It wasn't until I had sat down and begun loading my plate that I noticed it was also next to Boromir. Yay...

The meal, though delicious, was an uncomfortable experience. Each time Legolas looked at me, I couldn't help blushing (and I'm pretty sure that Aragorn, who was seated next to the Elf, noticed; every time _he_ looked at me he looked as though he was trying to suppress a laugh). Not to mention that sitting next to my personal arch-nemesis was not what I'd call fun.

Once I'd eaten my fill, I spotted a goblet of wine next to my plate. This gave me an idea, and for once it wasn't a stupid and/or boredom-induced one.

"Everyone," I said, raising my goblet. "I'd like to propose a toast."

"To what, may I ask?" Boromir growled. "This is hardly a time to celebrate."

"Yeah, well..." I started, trying to think up some less-than-polite comeback. It didn't work, so I just ended with a lame, "...shut up."

After that, I realized that I'd forgotten what I was going to say before Boromir had interrupted me. I thought for a minute until it came back to me. "How about a toast to...uh...to the fact that we're not dead yet?" I asked. _Wait_, I thought. _Did I just say not dead_ YET? _Great job, Alee, you've probably just lowered morale about nine points._ I rephrased it, "You know...to...life. Yeah, there we go."

There was a hearty chorus of "I'll drink to that!" from the other side of the table, namely, Merry and Pippin. I clicked glasses with everyone within reach (yes, even, _very_ reluctantly, with Boromir, for the sake of not being rude). Then I put my glass back down.

"Not thirsty?" asked Aragorn, looking pointedly at my still-full goblet.

"Oh, I am, sort of. It's just that, where I come from, I'm not legally allowed to drink anything alcoholic for another eight years," I explained. "But then again, I'm in Middle-earth now...ah, well, you only live once, I guess." With that, I picked up my goblet, and took a big gulp of wine.

Much to my surprise, it tasted _nasty_! I had to use every last shred of self-control I possessed to resist the urge to gag.

"You don't like it," Aragorn said, more a statement than a question.

_No_, REALLY?! I thought. _What on Earth gave you_ THAT _idea_?!

"Wine is and acquired taste," Aragorn commented.

Yeah, I remembered my dad telling me that when my family had gone on a cruise that November. But still, I couldn't see how _anyone_ could like the stuff!

I heard a small sound, and looked over. There was Boromir, his wide grin barely hidden by a hand over his mouth. I glared. He burst out laughing. I snapped entirely.

I picked up my plate, fully ready to smash his face in. I mean, really. He was _laughing_ at me! Somehow, I took this to be more insulting than his death threats in Moria. He deserved to be beaten to a bloody pulp, or worse! As I thought those last two words, a twisted smile spread across my face, and I put the plate back down. I had a much, _much_ better idea.

I gave a loud, mostly fake, yawn. "Well, the food was great and all, but I'm pretty tired," I said. "So, where are we sleeping?"

I was pointed down a path to an area under some trees not too far away. There, nine couches were set up, complete with blankets and pillows. Each one had somebody's stuff in front of it. I immediately found mine, the one with my t-shirt, jeans, and sweater neatly folded next to it. My couch also had the smallest amount of stuff with it.

I bounced onto it, and happily noted that it was way softer than I'd hoped. I smiled, and almost fell asleep right there. But then I remembered: I had a mission to carry out. Vengeance. Ohh, sweet, sweet vengeance...

One of the couches (thankfully it was not too near mine) had a pack and a round shield leaning against it. Meaning it was Boromir's. Good.

It was time to get to work.

Around half an hour later, a very tired, and in Merry and Pippin's cases, very tipsy fellowship trudged into the sleeping area. I was sitting cross-legged on my own couch, watching and waiting.

Everyone identified their couches, exchanged goodnights, and turned in. My plan would be put into action any second.

Any second now...

I was just beginning to doze when suddenly... "AAH!" A loud yelp cut through the peaceful night air. _Finally_! My head swiveled around in the direction of Boromir's couch, where the scream had come from.

I had looked over just in time to see the aforementioned man leap about two feet in the air off his couch. Upon landing, he pulled up the covers, revealing three very large, very slimy frogs.

Hey, they always _said_ revenge is a dish that was best served cold. And what I had just done had to be somewhere in the Arctic zone. I gave myself a mental pat on the back.

Boromir's expression had, in the space of ten seconds, gone from scared, to confused, to slightly pissed, nay, murderous. He looked at me, glaring daggers. Now it was _my_ turn to crack up.

Now Boromir advanced, looking like he was seriously about to haul off and kill me. By some miracle, Aragorn stepped in and started talking to Boromir, leading him away as he did so. Whew. I seriously owed Aragorn one.

Then I noticed that everyone else was looking at me.

"What?" I said defensively. "Look, I know what I did was underhanded, that it was mean, but COME ON. He totally had it coming!"

They all just kept staring at me with matching annoyed expressions.

I gave up. "All right, already! I'll apologize to him!" I had only said it to get them off my back. Not that I was actually going to _do_ it, or anything.

Then, as we were just getting ready to go to bed (again), a soft strain of music drifted through the air. It was a slow, haunting tune, and the words I could not understand. I raised a questioning eyebrow.

Legolas saw it, and explained. "A lament for Gandalf." I nodded, understanding now.

"What do they say about him?" asked Merry.

Legolas shook his head and replied, "I have not the heart to tell you. For me the grief is still too near."

Um, okay... What?

I guess the confusion must have shown on my face, because Sam leaned toward me and said quietly, "Elves are immortal unless they're slain, or they can die of a broken heart."

Mm-hm...wait...did he just say _immortal_? I looked over at Legolas, who was now wearing a silver-white shirt and breeches (that looked _very_ good on him, by the way). He didn't look a day over...I dunno...twenty-five at the most. But now I had a feeling that wasn't the case, and made a mental note to find out his actual age in the morning.

Suddenly a wave of exhaustion swept over me. Maybe the healing waters of Nimrodel had finally worn off; maybe now that I was clean and my stomach was full, there was just nothing else to do but sleep; maybe it was my subconscious telling me that there was no danger here, that these were well-protected borders, that I could actually sleep well tonight so I'd better take advantage of it...who knew? The point was, I was dead tired. I mumbled, "G'night, guys," and crawled back onto my couch. I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.

And so ended the first night of our stay in Lothlórien.

_So..._

_All right, you know what I'm going to say next, so how about I just don't waste my breath?_

_See you all next time, and keep the lovely reviews coming!_


	10. Swordplay Lessons

_(Music plays) Guess who's back? Back again? Kaisa's back! Tell a friend! …Was that lame? Oh yes, yes it was. But I'd like to take this opportunity to get down on my knees in front of all my readers and beg forgiveness for being away so long. (grovels)_

_I really do have an excuse. I moved house last month and started at a new school, so my life has been chaotic at the best of times lately. My neighbor's dog bit me and I stayed home from school for a couple days, and I'm still recovering from all the make-up work. Yeah. So now that I've finally got a few spare minutes, I'm updating. Doesn't that make you happy?_

_Actually, yesterday I got back in touch with one of my friends that I haven't seen in two years, and when she asked me about this fic and I told her how far I've written, she was all, "You mean you still haven't finished it!" So that was a bit of a motivator as well. Everyone say thank you to Sarah L._

_Okay, I'm beginning to ramble, so I'll just get on with it. To the reviewers…_

_**Kiami Sinno**: Don't hurt yourself there…thanks for reviewing me again (especially when you could just call me up and say what you think)!_

_**Auta Miqula Orqu**: Oh, Ningwen! Didn't recognize you for a second…anyway, I'll read 'Military Elves'…sometime…_

_**Mellonim**: Hi, again! Thanks for reviewing!_

_**LoudMouthStar**: Wow, everyone keeps going on and on about the whole 'Tolkien's muse dying' thing…it was just a figure of speech I threw in, and people like it! Cool! And no, this isn't going to be a Legomance…I think I said that somewhere…but yeah, eighth grade is a little young, you know?_

_**XAliceX:** Three reviews! Yay! You rock._

_**Angel Of Death13713**: Oh, cool. Thanks for the tip, by the way. I don't usually ignore them, I send the flamer what my friend Kuka likes to call "letters of general disapproval"._

_Legal Disclaimer: Lord of the Rings and all characters, settings, and plot elements related to it are © J.R.R. Tolkien, New Line Cinema, and…whoever else it belongs to. Hey, that sounded almost professional!_

Chapter X (See, violence really DOES solve problems…wait, do swordplay lessons count as violence?)

I couldn't believe I was actually going to do this. It was stupid…it'd never work out…not to mention that there were several reasons I could think of that I _shouldn't_ do it…But I had to. No one was making me, or anything, but I had decided that there was no other option. _Besides_, I thought. _You do this, you can do anything_.

We had been in Lórien for two days. Two days that I spent either sleeping away, or getting over the premature stroke I'd suffered after learning that Legolas was 2,931 years old (my cure being to sleep it off, so maybe I should just say that I'd spent the better part of the past two days sleeping). And right then, I was preparing to say two words that basically went against everything I stood for.

"…Hiya, Boromir…"

He looked up from the large tree root on which he had been sitting, glare plastered on his face. Part of me wanted to tell him, _your face'll stick like that if you're not careful, you know_. But I decided against it.

"Do you not have something better to do than pester me?" he growled.

"Yes, actually," I retorted, "a long list. Up to and including drinking a gallon of pure arsenic." He probably didn't understand that, but the tone of my voice got the point across. "But…I need to ask a favor."

Boromir replied acidly, "Please, do tell me why I should even _consider_ helping you when you hate me. I've done nothing to make you feel so."

That actually made me laugh. "Nothing? Done _nothing_, you say? Hah! Let's see here," I began counting on my fingers. "You mock me, you harass me to no end, you're constantly threatening me, and I've got this huge gash in my arm thanks to you! And yet, you say you've done _nothing_ to make me despise you. I'd hate to see you do _something_, then!"

"Are you quite finished?"

"Why yes. Yes I am. Now can I please ask you what I came to ask so we can get on with our lives?"

"No one seems to be stopping you."

I stood silently, mentally battling it out. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present today's contenders. In this corner, my hatred, no, my sheer, utter _loathing_ of Boromir. And in this corner, good old reason. Let's get ready to _rumble_!

Eventually reason won out. "…Neyadatechmeswords," I finally mumbled.

"In a language I understand, if you please."

I took a deep breath and said, more slowly this time: "I need you to teach me how to use a sword." There; got it over with.

Boromir actually seemed taken aback by my request. I don't know what he thought it was that I was going to ask, but it wasn't what I said.

There was a pause. Then, Boromir asked, "Why ask me?"

"You taught Merry and Pippin," I said, shrugging my shoulders. "They said you were a good teacher, is all. Besides, you guys seem to be into some pretty dangerous stuff here, and since I don't know how to get back home, I'm basically stuck with you. So I think it's in my best interest to learn how to defend myself."

He considered this, and then, finally, nodded slowly. He said simply, "Get your sword."

"Well, you see…I sort of don't have one," I said. "Remember that big evil octomathing outside Moria? It made me drop it."

"Then you have already failed at the first and most basic of the rules of swordplay: never drop your weapon," Boromir informed me. "Go get Aragorn's sword, then." I stood there, wondering if Aragorn would be okay with that, and Boromir barked, "NOW!"

It surprised me so much that I scurried off without my usual snide remark.

Back at our sleeping area, I found the sword at the foot of Aragorn's bed. I tried to pick it up, and found that it weighed more than I'd expected. It was so heavy that I just dragged it back to Boromir, leaving a long track in the grass. "Well, pick it up," he said when I got there.

I stared at him. "What?"

He glared and replied, "Did I stutter? I said pick it up."

I continued staring at him. "Dude. That thing weighs like a ton."

"Pick. The. Sword. Up. Now," Boromir growled. The look on his face was one of pure venom, and it scared the crap out of me.

But there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell I'd let him know that. So I went, all nonchalantly, "Yeah. Sure, whatever," and lifted the sword. It took me almost a minute to get it off the ground, and several joints popped rather painfully in the process, but I did it.

"Hah! Got it! In your _face_, Boromir!" I crowed. And then, idiot that I am, I started doing a little victory dance. It threw me off balance, and I toppled over backwards and dropped the sword. The breath was knocked out of me, and I saw stars.

Then I realized that my hands hurt like _crap_! I swear, it was like that one episode of _Dragonball Z_, when Gohan pulls the Z Sword out of the stone. I mean, my hands weren't glowing or making that weird "boing-y" noise, but that's was it _felt_ like.

"What on Earth was _that_ supposed to be?" Boromir asked incredulously. "Get up. It's time you actually learned something."

"Okay, then," I said, getting to my feet. "What're we going to do?"

Then I saw what was unmistakably a smirk cross my instructor's face.

_Oh, Lordy_, I thought. _What have I done_?

Three hours later, I knew exactly what I'd done: walked into a fencing lesson taught by Hades himself. (No, not my math teacher. Boromir.)

At the start of the lesson, Boromir had drawn his own sword, as I thought he would. He showed me how to draw it quickly without losing my balance and falling over. I had a few problems with this, and I fell quite a lot before I realized I was doing it backwards, being left-handed and all.

After that, instead of just showing me techniques and having me practice them, like I thought he'd do, he _attacked_ me! Just rushed at me with his sword, and if I hadn't blocked with my own at the last second, I think he might actually have struck me.

It was the classic "swim-or-sink" teaching method. The theory was, essentially, that if you tossed someone into deep water, and their only choices were to swim or to sink (and so, drown), then they'd swim. This was a good theory, except that I had just sunk. Figuratively, anyway.

Then Boromir started berating me about how my swing was all over the place, and that there was so little strength behind my block that he could've easily knocked my sword aside and killed me.

And that's how it went. A two-minute match (I always lost), and a ten-minute rant, courtesy of Boromir, about what I'd done wrong.

The fighting portion of the fifteenth bout had just ended with Boromir's blade pressed up against my throat. I couldn't take this anymore; I had to finish this before the yelling part began.

"Hey, Boromir, may I take a break?" I asked.

"No," he said flatly.

"But I'm tired. We've been at this for three straight—"

"No."

"Come on. Please? Just a short—"

"No."

I snapped. "Honestly! Is five freaking minutes too much to ask? I can't even feel my arms anymore, you psycho!"

"You might want to listen to her, Boromir. She's dead on her feet. Besides, a sword won't be of much use to her if her arms fall off, will it?" said a voice from behind us.

I spun around and saw Aragorn leaning against the trunk of a nearby tree. How long had he been standing there?

Boromir took one look at Aragorn, sheathed his sword, muttered something inaudible, and stalked off.

I turned to Aragorn and raised a questioning eyebrow. "I was wondering what had happened to my sword," he said simply.

"So, how long have you been here, anyway?" I asked. "Long enough to see me embarrass myself?"

"You weren't that bad," Aragorn replied. "With some practice, you could be a master."

"Yeah. A _lot_ of practice," I replied skeptically. "So, is Boromir that much of a psycho to everyone, or am I just special?"

"Have you considered that he may still be angry at you?" Aragorn suggested.

I tried that, and it did make sense. "Yeah. I'd probably be pretty mad at me, too."

"I'll talk to him," Aragorn promised.

And I guess he did. Because when I headed back over the next day, arms still aching, anticipating another day of torture, I found that Boromir's mood had improved.

Well, he still worked me as hard as the day before, but at least this time he showed me how to fix my mistakes, instead of screaming at me about how much of a failure I was. That definitely helped me out.

And so the days passed. Each night I would return to camp and flop down on my couch, too tired to even move from the day's swordplay lesson. But I was learning. Soon, instead of losing to Boromir in two minutes, I was able to hold my own for five, then ten. At one point, after a rare fifteen-minute match, I even earned a compliment.

"Well done." It was said with barely any detectable enthusiasm, nor any bit of a congratulatory smile, but coming from Boromir, it was high praise.

"Thank you," I replied at length. I sheathed Aragorn's sword, sat down, and tried to rub some feeling back into my arms. "You know what, Boromir? I never thought I'd say this, but you're not so bad. I guess. Just, for future reference, don't go around stabbing people when you meet them. Shaking hands is a lot less painful."

He nodded and said, "Right. I'll try to remember that." And then, I could have sworn I saw the corners of his mouth turn up in a tiny, near-unnoticeable smile.

"And well, I'm…" I began, wondering whether to say what I had been about to. Loathing-of-Boromir and Good-Old-Reason had entered the ring for a second round. Loathing lost again. "I'm really sorry about the frogs. And calling you names, and flipping you off, and all that. Can you, um, forgive me?"

He nodded and said, "I do not blame you. I realize I have been, well, less than friendly. _I_ apologize for threatening you, and stabbing you, and for laughing at you. Can you forgive _me_?"

I blinked. This was beginning to be too much. I mean, first, an actual _conversation_ with Boromir (without bloodshed, to boot), then him _smiling_ at me, and my apologizing to him and asking his forgiveness, and then _him_ asking the same of _me_. And all in the same ten minutes. Wow.

"Sure I forgive you," I said. "I think the problem is that we just got off to a bad start. You know what I mean?" I held out my hand. "So…friends?"

Boromir shook it. "Friends."

In my mind, I pictured a small headstone, and written upon it were the words _Loathing-of-Boromir. January 15, 2004 – February 12, 2004. RIP._

That day, I stopped feeling so bad about being stuck in Middle-earth. I was in a place where hobbits, elves, dwarves, and wizards existed. I was in a place where two people could loathe each other with every fiber of their respective beings one minute, and be chums the next. Hey, maybe anything was possible here.

_Okay, I know some of the readers are very anti-Boromir, and this probably made them gag. I apologize. It's just that when I started writing this way back in the day (seventh grade, that is…), I really hated him, but after reading the books/watching the movies about five zillion times each, I came to the decision that he's not so bad (but still plenty fun to mess with). Actually, I think the end of this chapter was kind of sappy, but oh well._

_Anywho, it's that time again: start reviewing. And I'll try to post the next chapter…oh, sometime before I finish freshman year…_


	11. Galadriel's Stupid Mirror

_Look at me; I'm updating for the first time in…how long? Two months! Holy crap, it didn't seem like that long! I am so sorry! (Okay, I've done worse than two months. But still…)_

_All right, so for those of you that actually bother to read my bio and/or LiveJournal (why do I have a funny feeling I'm only addressing Kiami, then?), you know why I haven't updated in so long. I've said it in both places and I'm not going to repeat myself. So if you don't know and you want to, then you're just going to have to look._

_Right. To those people who have reviewed me, I love you all! The usual thank-you notes can be found below:_

_**Chicky Poo**: All right, it's nice to see someone new on my review list! Hope to hear from you again!_

_**XAliceX**: I'm workin' as fast as I can! Actually, that's a lie. If I'd been working as fast as I could on this, it would have been finished sometime in 2003. Sorry…_

_**Legolanderin**: I'm not really that sarcastic in real life. I'll usually think of a witty, snide comeback several minutes after it would be useful, and then I'll just have to keep it to myself._

_**cobra1984**: Thank you, thank you. See above for my thoughts on the sarcasm._

_**Mystical Full Moon Maiden**: Thank you for your forgiveness. Am I crazy, or did you change your name again?_

_If you want a disclaimer, hit the "back" button and look at the one in the previous chapter. I'm tired of writing them._

_Oh, I almost forgot to mention that in this chapter, I'm gettin' my drama on again. Sorry, but I'm kind of trying to branch out from humor and all (I'm even writing a piece of fanfiction that's really dark and dramatic that I've written like six chapters to, and I'm really liking it. You're probably never going to see it here, though). Well, I read the original version of this chapter over and realized it was a little bit dark compared to what I usually write, so I added a little funny part near the end. Hope you like it._

Chapter XI (Finally, a Bit of Advancement in the Plot)

"Hey, Aragorn?" I asked a few nights later. "Can I ask you something?"

He looked at me, eyebrows raised slightly. "I thought you would be asleep by now."

"Not tonight. Boromir says I'm good enough with a sword, so he's started showing me the finer points of knife-fighting," I said, showing him my new dagger. "Which is a lot less tiresome than fighting with a big old heavy sword."

He looked at the knife I held, and asked, "Doesn't that belong to Boromir?"

"It did half an hour ago," I replied. "He said I could keep it, as long as I keep it safe and don't lose it, like my sword."

"I see," Aragorn said. "Didn't you have something to ask me?"

Oh, _yeah_. I'd almost forgotten. "Okay. Something's been bugging me. I've been here in Middle-earth for, what, a month now, and I _still_ have no idea what's going on. Like, where are we going, and why, and stuff?"

Aragorn nodded. "Yes. It is a very long story, really. Well, it all began back in the Second Age, some five thousand years ago, when the Great Rings were forged. Three were given to the rulers of the Elves, seven to the Dwarf-lords, and nine to the kings of Men."

I added it up in my head. Three plus seven plus nine. That'd be nineteen rings total.

"But in secret, the dark lord Sauron forged another ring," Aragorn continued. "But this, the One Ring, was designed solely to control others, and so, control all of Middle-earth. And that plan would have succeeded, had it not been for the Last Alliance of Men and Elves. They fought Sauron, and beat him back."

I nodded, understanding most, but not all, of the story so far. Sure, I got what was going on, but I failed to see what it had to do with us.

"Now, Sauron was defeated, but the Ring was not destroyed." A dark look crossed Aragorn's face for a second, like he took his last comment to be some sort of personal insult. I would have asked, but he launched back into his narrative before I got the chance. "And, to shorten a long tale even more than I have already, the Ring eventually came into Frodo's possession. The nine of us, or eight, now, are the Fellowship of the Ring; we are charged with taking the Ring to the Black Land of Mordor, Sauron's lair. It was where the Ring was made, and the only place it can be destroyed."

"So…we're sort of on a mission to save the world?" I asked.

"Essentially, yes," Aragorn replied.

I blinked. This was news to me. "Okay. So, um, is this what would be considered a, well, potentially life-threatening quest?"

Aragorn nodded and said grimly, "I'm afraid 'potentially' has nothing to do with it. What happened in Moria was but a taste of what may befall us on this journey. If you are very concerned about your health, I suggest you stay here."

Now, normally, I'd have been nodding vigorously at that last request. But I found myself shaking my head and saying, "No. I'll stick with you guys."

"Actually, it would be in your best interest to remain," he told me. "Lórien is safer than any other place you'll see if you continue with us. Besides that, Lady Galadriel is a powerful sorceress. She may be able to get you back to your home."

He hadn't bothered to mention any of this before. I'm not entirely sure why, but his words caused me to feel a small twinge of anger. "Look, Aragorn, I really don't like being lied to," I said. "If you think I can't take care of myself, or that I'm too big a burden, or whatever, just say it."

Aragorn looked at me, and calmly began, "Alee, I—"

The anger flared suddenly, and what I was feeling could no longer be defined as a twinge. No, I was plain old pissed off. "I mean, I know I pulled a Brave Sir Robin in Moria, but that was _one time_," I ranted, cutting him off. "I swear, next time I'll stand and fight. Really! And if you just want to dump me off here, then just come out and say it! Don't BS me with your little Lórien sales pitch, because I am not—"

"Alee! I am _not_ trying to get rid of you!" Aragorn said, this time with a raised voice.

I snapped out of my psycho moment and blinked. "Oh…Okay, then…"

"I am not trying to 'dump you off,' as you put it," he explained, more quietly. "I am simply letting you know the situation. I try to avoid lying to people whenever possible."

"Okay," I said again. "But if it's all the same to you, I'd rather stay with the Fellowship, all right?"

Aragorn was silent, but he nodded.

"Cool. Thanks." Feeling much enlightened, I put my knife away and went to bed.

I woke in the wee hours of the morning. It was still dark out. I was thirsty.

I slipped into my sneakers and set off in search of a kitchen. I hadn't gotten far when I bumped into someone.

It was Frodo. I stole a quick glance at his chest, where a gold ring hung from a sliver chain around his neck. The One Ring. For the first time, it dawned on me that I was in close proximity with an object of unspeakable evil. That scared me, but part of me was intrigued as well. I stared at it. And, was it just my imagination, or was a whispery voice emanating from it, speaking words I didn't know?

"Alee?" the hobbit asked. "I'm sorry for running into you." He paused, looked at me. "Alee? Are you even listening to me? ALEE!"

I tore my eyes away from the Ring, and blinked rapidly to erase the image of the gold band that lingered in my mind. I looked at Frodo. "Sorry about that," I apologized. "Spaced out for a second there."

The hobbit shook his head. "You didn't. The Ring was calling to you…"

When he said that, his voice had dropped to a low whisper. I looked at him again, and noticed he was as pale as a sheet.

"Frodo, you all right?" I asked.

"Yes, fine," he said quickly. But then he reconsidered. "No, I'm not all right. Not at all. Please, do not try to help me. I'm afraid there's nothing you can do." He started in the direction I had come from, turned a corner, and was gone.

"Well…that was weird," I muttered.

Remembering my thirst, I resumed walking again. And just as I was going from "thirsty" to "completely parched," I came upon a small clearing. At its center was a silver basin on a stone pedestal, and next to it was a silver pitcher. I couldn't believe my luck.

Grabbing the pitcher, I started filling it with water from the basin. But then, something at the bottom of the basin moved. I looked again, and didn't see anything.

"What do you see in the Mirror?" a soft voice asked.

I jumped. The pitcher fell from my hands, clanged off the side of the basin, and fell to the grass.

Lady Galadriel stood facing me. Where had _she_ come from?

"What do you see in the Mirror?" she repeated.

I looked quickly into the water, then back up at her. "My reflection. Why?"

Any other person would probably have shaken their head and sighed, or rolled their eyes. Galadriel kept her gaze focused on me, unwavering. She said in a wise voice that vaguely reminded me of the baboon from _The Lion King_, "Look deeper."

I looked at the water again, and my confused reflection stared back. But then, something changed.

Things began moving around in the water. I squinted, and to my amazement, saw _pictures_. There were hundreds, maybe even thousands, of images swirling sporadically around in the basin, or mirror, or whatever it was.

Whenever I focused on one for a split second, I'd see a dozen more out of the corner of my eye, floating away, just out of my reach. I viewed them all in rapid succession, trying and failing to wrap my mind around them all. Some I recognized, some were totally alien. A few were of home, but most appeared to be of Middle-earth.

My mom, sitting at the kitchen table and crying. A group of horsemen galloping across a plain. My brother, playing some video game or another. A tiered city of white stone. My dad, showing my school picture to a cop at what was presumably the police station. A man with three black arrows in his chest, surrounded by dead orcs. A shining robed figure. Orcs marching across paved streets that couldn't possibly be in Middle-earth. Huge black things resembling dragons wheeling overhead. A giant eye, floating in midair like some grotesque sun—

"Stop it!" I screamed, squeezing my eyes shut. "Stop it! What _was_ all that!"

Cautiously, I opened my eyes and looked back into the water. Nothing but my reflection, which had paled considerably since the last time I'd looked. I glanced up at Galadriel.

_It is your present_, she explained, speaking telepathically. _Your future. And what may become of your home_.

"Okay, look. Can you _please_ quit talking in my head? I'm freaked enough as it is," I snapped. "And what do you mean, that _may_ happen to my home?"

"If Sauron emerges the victor of this War of the Ring, his lust for power will only be fueled," Galadriel said, honoring my request and speaking aloud. "Where will he go when all Middle-earth is his to command?"

The realization of that hit me, and it hit hard. My legs suddenly felt like Jell-o, and I sank to my knees in front of the pedestal.

"So…so…if we lose here, then…my home's…" I couldn't even finish the statement, knowing was bad enough, but hearing in from my own mouth would have been terrible.

"Doomed," Galadriel said quietly. My personal word choice probably would have been 'screwed', but I guess zillion-year-old Elf queens didn't use that kind of language. "Perhaps that is even why you were brought here: to take part in this war and help free both our worlds."

I don't know why I started crying then. I hate crying in front of people I _know_ let alone almost complete strangers. But, well, learning that you're basically Earth's only hope of survival can do that to you, I guess.

"Why _me_, then!" I sobbed angrily. "Why me and not somebody else! Somebody who actually knows what they're doing!"

Galadriel was silent. For all her magic mirrors and prophesizing and wise words, she couldn't answer me. That was funny, in its own, ironic way.

"Seriously! I'm thirteen years old, for God's sake!" I ranted. "I don't fight in wars! I don't kill people! I'm no soldier; I'm a freaking _teenager_! I play video games and watch TV and stuff!"

She didn't say anything, nor did she do anything to end my hysterical tirade.

"I don't want to be here! I miss my parents and my friends and I even miss school! I want to surf the Internet and eat at McDonald's and all that; be normal! No wars! I just want to go home! Please! Aragorn said you could send me back, so please, if there's any kindness in your heart _do it_ already!" I stopped yelling and sheepishly realized that I'd probably woken half of Lórien up.

I took a deep breath to calm myself, to get rid of the panic. I counted to ten. Didn't work. At least all my screaming and sobbing got a bit of weight off my chest. Not much, but it was better than nothing.

Galadriel shook her head slowly. "No, Alee, I cannot send you home. Even if it were not beyond my power, though, I would not. You are as important to this Fellowship as Aragorn, or even Frodo."

I snorted. "Yeah. I am _so_ sure," I said sourly. "But, then again, every team's got to have its Resident Useless Member/Outcast, right?"

Again, Galadriel shook her head, but this time she wore a smile. It was a sort of conspiratorial smile, one that suggested she knew something I didn't. A smile, I supposed, that came from being psychic.

"Before your time in Middle-earth is through, you will have proven your worth," she said mystically. "Do not worry about returning to your home. When the Black Gate is thrown down and the winged crown rests once more upon the king's head, the path home will become clear to you."

I stood up and asked her, "Do you really need to be so cryptic? I mean, I get that you're psychic and all, but could you do me a favor and translate?"

She smiled again, eyes twinkling, with that secretive smile of hers. I made a disgusted sort of noise in my throat and stomped off, headed back toward camp.

Frodo was the only one still awake. Some color had returned to his face, but whatever he had seen in Galadriel's mirror (something told me that's what had happened to him; after all, nothing else in this forest was that scary) was keeping him awake. I waved at him, and he smiled back at me and nodded.

It's pretty funny how two people can share such a profound understanding of each other so quickly and so silently. Because that's what happened. What Frodo and I had seen in that mirror…well. It scared us both. And, to me at least, the worst part was that all of it could happen. Oh, and that on our shoulders rested the fates of our respective worlds. That was pretty scary too, considering that I was some dumb teenager who had a tendency to trip over anything and the attention span of a carrot, and he was a short guy with hairy feet and a slightly obsessive gardener.

Oh, yeah. Our worlds were in good hands.

I scanned the sleeping forms of the others, and a wave of jealously crashed down on me. I envied them, even, to a certain extent, hated them.

Because every one of them—every single freaking _one_ of them—was sleeping so peacefully, not knowing, maybe even not caring, that there was an entire other world in danger…and that it was up to the nine of us to save it.

I sighed angrily, climbed into bed, and drifted off to sleep. _Well_, came my last conscious thought. _Today's definitely been…interesting…_

_Right. So, chapter eleven all done. Whoot! So…I'm still stuck at school with nothing to do for another two hours…maybe I'll post chapter twelve. I dunno. In any case, I'm currently writing the last chapter and, although this fic has become near and dear to my heart over the years, I CANNOT WAIT TO FINALLY GET THE STUPID THING FINISHED. I'll be posting the next few chappies today and tomorrow, because I'm going to be stuck in the school library for horrendous amounts of time._

_Please review me. I live for feedback (preferably positive, but if not, then oh well). Later!_

_(ETA 1/07: Heh. Feedback.)_


	12. The King and I

_And so, my worthy adversaries…WE MEET AGAIN. Er…sorryboutthat… But yes, I have returned from…you know, like…being gone. Whatever._

_Anyway, I'd like to take a moment to apologize for the long wait between chapters. I know I said I'd type it up the same day as chapter eleven, but I realize I didn't have it typed up (I'm a bad, bad person; I know). And my computer at home still isn't fixed, so I had to type this chapter up on a completely different one…which, after typing it up once, was really not fun. I have better ways to waste my time over summer vacation._

_On that note, yay! Summer! I'm all done with freshman year! Par-tay! So this chapter is dedicated to the Class of '08 in general…we made it, guys!_

_Now, on to the thank-you notes…_

_**Maiderhair**: Ah. Then I know which story you were looking at. Isn't it funny? Well, I'm glad your brother's Phantom impressions are cute… Oh, and thank you so much for reviewing! I hope you enjoy the rest of the fic!_

_**SilentStream**: New reader! All right! And as for what trouble our heroine will cause in the land of the Horse-Lords…well, I don't quite know yet, but it should be interesting…Moo-ha-ha…_

_**Neassa**: Well, I'm glad you like it. I'm hoping to see it finished as well…I can't believe I'm still not done after all this time. Damn lazy muses…_

_**gothic-ember**: Don't think I've seen you before either. Thank you so much for reviewing me!_

_**Mystical Full Moon Maiden**: I don't blame ya, girl…_

_**Milla J.:** Thanks much for reviewing me again!_

_**Legolanderin**: Yeah, staying at the library all that time was pretty torturous…especially since they closed early on Friday and I had to wander around campus for a few hours…blah. But I got an A on my paper! Whoot! Oh, and thanks for the review, as always!_

_Again, I'm surprised at how much response I got for just one line that I put in as an afterthought. I'm glad you all liked the "attention span of a carrot" thing…that's kind of how I am in real life. Otherwise (as I said before), this fic would have been over and done with by late 2003._

_An additional warning before we move on to the actual chapter: This chapter contains much of the snark. I'm not sure if it's any more than usual, but it sure seems like it. This is my fault, because I was reading a book by Laurie Notaro at the time. Her work is full of humor like mine, only a bit more mature. But if anyone out there can get their hands on something by her, I strongly recommend you read them. I mean, come on! Two of her books are called _The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club _and_ I Love Everybody and Other Atrocious Lies_. I kid you not._

_Okay. How 'bout I let you read the chapter before this author's note becomes as long as chapter seven. Ehehe…_

Chapter XII (That's What I Get for Reading Laurie Notaro before Writing This…)

The next morning found all of us standing in a row before Galadriel, Celeborn, and about a dozen of their servants. The servants were busy pinning new cloaks and brooches onto each of us.

"Never before have we clad strangers in the garb of our own people," Celeborn droned. "May these cloaks protect you from unfriendly eyes."

In addition to the grey-green cloak and emerald leaf brooch, I had acquired a new set of traveling clothes. White shirt, forest-green pants (or hose, or breeches, or whatever they were called here; why were there so many synonyms for the word "pants"?), a grey-green jacket, and dark green boots. Well, it was a lot less conspicuous than jeans and a Mudd t-shirt. I could have done with a bit of armor or something, but I guess you can't have everything.

The elf attending to me grimaced. "Can you not keep still for a moment?" he asked exasperatedly. He struggled to pin the leaf brooch onto the front of my cloak as I bounced up and down on the balls of my feet. After stabbing me a few times (and I'm not entirely sure all of them were accidents), he finally succeeded.

The truth was, I _couldn't_ stand still. And I blamed Galadriel's stupid mirror entirely. See, the night before, when I'd seen all that and had basically been charged with the protection of the Earth, I'd been pretty freaked out (and I'd love to meet the crazy bum who wouldn't be in that situation). Now that I'd had time to sleep on it, though, I wanted to _do_ something about it. I was full of this borderline-manic energy, and all I could think of was going out there and saving the world.

I was fully aware that he borderline-manic energy was subbing while my sanity went on vacation in Iceland or something, but I digress.

Then Celeborn and Galadriel tapped their emergency charity reserves and presented each of us with a gift. Merry and Pippin got matching belts and daggers; Boromir was given a silver belt; Legolas received a new bow, quiver, and arrows; Aragorn got a really nice hunting knife.

A few of my other companions got much stranger gifts. Sam became the proud owner of, well, rope. Gimli, who had developed a crush on Galadriel that I found equally cute and disturbing, had asked that she give him a hair from her head; she gave him three. And Frodo got a glass bottle full of what Galadriel said was starlight, but it looked like plain old water to me. And I had a nasty feeling that if Frodo didn't keep an eye on it, somebody would mistake it for a fancy bottle of Dasani and have at it.

Then it was my turn. I had just enough time to quickly pray the Lady of the Wood didn't give me anything weird (i.e. hair or Elvish holy water); because really, I try to be nice, but I didn't think I'd know what to say if I got something like that as a present. I heaved a mental sigh of relief when she approached me with a sheathed sword.

"This sword is named Elluin," she said as another servant belted it around my waist. "It means 'blue star' in the common tongue. A noble blade as befits a savior, for you are the light of hope to your people."

O_kay_. Boy, was that cheesy or what? I was completely torn between gagging and laughing my head off. I settled for just making a face. But that was also because I'd tried to draw my new weapon and found that I couldn't, since it had been belted onto my left side, and now my attendant was fiddling with the belt again to fix it. Well, he shouldn't have just assumed I was right-handed, now should he?

And by the way, I say that Galadriel and Celeborn tapped their emergency charity reserves because as soon as they were done playing Santa Claus, they threw us out. Well, maybe "threw us out" was putting it a little strongly; it was more of a "hey, you guys have been here for a month now and the world would really like to be saved sometime this century, so could you all please get a move on?"

Apparently, the next leg of our journey was down a river, so we were given three grey boats and left to pack up and go.

While the others loaded the boats with their luggage (having mysteriously lost my backpack upon arriving in Middle-earth, I didn't have anything to pack), I took a minute to admire Elluin. When I drew it, I was delighted to find that it was much lighter than Aragorn's sword. Mine was a hand-and-a-half sword, with a long grip so it could be wielded in one or both hands. The blade had a subtle curve to it, almost like a leaf. The guard and scabbard were both dyed a deep shade of blue. It looked pretty familiar, actually. Like Gandalf's sword, minus the jewel and inscription in the crossguard.

I sheathed it and went over to help the nearest person. That happened to be Legolas, and he was stocking the boats with what looked like really big crackers wrapped in really big leaves. Merry and Pippin stood nearby, watching.

"So, uh, what exactly are these things?" I asked the Elf, putting a few of the cracker-like things into the bottom of the boat.

"Lembas. Elven waybread," he explained. "A single bite can fill the stomach of a grown man."

_Yeah, one who's had a gastric bypass, maybe_, I thought. What? Can you blame me for not believing him? I grabbed one of the crackers, broke a piece off, and popped it into my mouth. By the time I swallowed it, I was actually feeling pretty full.

"Whoa, you're right!" I exclaimed. I beckoned to Merry and Pippin. "Dude, you two have _got_ to try this stuff!"

Merry waved an empty leaf at me and said, "Already did." I noticed that both he and Pippin were looking a bit ill. "_How_ many did you eat?" The question was directed at a green-tinged Pippin.

"Four," the younger hobbit said, a hint of fear coloring his voice. He was clearly afraid for his life.

I went over to him and patted him on the shoulder. "Hey, don't worry. You're not going to die," I assured him. I refrained from adding _I think_. "I mean, chances are you'll be sick as a dog for a few hours, but I'm sure you'll come out of it fine."

Pippin nodded, grimacing, and clutched his stomach. There was an ominous gurgling sound coming from that area; the phrase _one thin mint_ flashed through my mind as I wondered if he was going to explode.

Fortunately for me (and everyone else in the immediate area), there was no ka-boom, and little Pippin bits did not go flying through the air. That would have been gross. Instead, he belched loud enough to scare the birds out of a nearby tree.

"See, I told you so," I said. "Do that a few more times and you'll be fine."

Once the food had been stowed, we were ready to get underway. The nine of us piled into the boats and set off down the river. We waved goodbye to Galadriel of the Cheesy, Cryptic Orations, who stood on a grassy bank to see us off. Celeborn the Non-Entity was nowhere in sight. Well, he actually might have been standing right next to his wife, but the guy was so utterly ignorable that none of us saw him.

And that was the last I saw of Lothlórien.

We spent the rest of the day paddling down the big river, and what little sanity I had left at that point was slowly disappearing.

All right, first let me explain the seating arrangements, because they played a big part in my bad, continually worsening mood. In the first boat were Aragorn, Frodo, and Sam. Pippin, Merry, and Boromir occupied the second boat. And bringing up the rear were Legolas, Gimli, and myself in the third boat.

Now, I don't know _whose_ bright idea it was to dump all the baggage in _our_ boat. The added weight slowed us down, and thus, we were in the back. All the junk took up a lot of space, too, so I had to sit atop the mountain of luggage. And oh, didn't it just _figure_ that the pack on top belonged to Sam, our resident cooking aficionado. All the pots, pans, and other bits of cutlery were digging into my butt and making an already uncomfortable journey even worse.

What ticked me off the most wasn't necessarily that I was uncomfortable; no I could cope with some discomfort. It was more the fact that everyone _else_ was having a nice, comfy little joyride. That sucked.

I mean, there were two midgets in each of the other boats. Any luggage with them? _Nooo_. And see, if they'd had to sit on the packs, all that would happen was that they'd actually be able to see over the sides of the boats. I, on the other hand, was in danger of falling _out_.

And then there was Gimli. You think _I_ can complain? Gimli's complaining skills positively dwarfed mine. No pun intended

Well, actually, I totally intended it.

Seriously, though. First, it was that he didn't like boats. We wrestled him into one. Then it was that we were going to slow, and that we'd be left behind. Legolas, who was paddling our boat, sped up. And after _that_, we were going too fast, and he was going to be sick. Legolas slowed down even before I'd finished begging him to (being trapped on a boat with a seasick dwarf was not on my agenda). And _then_, could we please go ashore and rest; this trip was tiring him out.

That last one, I actually laughed at. I mean, complaining is really not that hard, and that's all Gimli had been doing _the whole day_. Legolas had been paddling for the same amount of time, and _he_ wasn't tired. Even _I_ was actually working at not falling off my teetering mound of packs into the water, while sitting on what I strongly suspected was a fork; I hadn't even broken a sweat.

But _no_. Gimli was tired.

He got his wish. Around sunset, we went ashore and made camp along the riverbank. We started a small campfire and laid out our bedrolls. Well, as for the last one, everyone laid out their bedrolls _except me_. Because, you know, I didn't have one.

This really hadn't been much of a problem before. We'd just come out of Lothlórien of the Nice Comfy Beds; enough said. And before that, when we were in Moria, we'd all just walk until we were too tired to do anything more than collapse onto the rocks.

Here, there weren't any prime sleeping spots that I could see. There was, well, dirt. A patch of grass here and there, your occasional rock, the stand of trees a ways back, but mostly just dirt. And do you know what was _on_ that dirt?

Bugs. Lots and lots of creepy crawly bugs. Ants, beetles, you name it, it was there. I happened to have a big problem with anything with six legs and up. I ­_refused_ to sleep on bugs.

Good Old Reason let me know that there were just as many, if not more, bugs back in Moria. But Childish Immaturity, another more prominent facet of my personality, simply said that since I didn't see them, they didn't exist.

I had to solve the problem of where to sleep before another mental fistfight broke out. I took another look around. The only feasible option was to sleep in one of the boats. Okay. I could live with that.

Once our mini-camp had been set up, we decided on watches. Since there were nine of us, we would take three watches in groups of three. After drawing straws (different-sized blades of grass, really), I ended up on second watch with Aragorn and Frodo.

Next was a quick dinner of lembas, which I noted Merry and Pippin did not partake in. Ah, lembas. Yum, yum. I longed for a nice slice of pizza. As I chewed my bit of Elf bread, I pretended I could taste the cheese, the sauce, the pepperoni.

It didn't work. I had all but forgotten the taste of pizza. I really _was_ losing it!

The sky had darkened by the time we were finished, and Aragorn said, "All right. Get some rest. We depart at dawn."

As everyone else exchanged goodnights, I made my solitary way over to my boat and started to climb in. I stopped, reached in, and hauled six of the packs (including Sam's) out. I distributed them into the other boats. _Then_ I climbed in.

I shoved the rest of the packs to one side, planning to use them as pillows. At the bottom of the boat, I discovered a fur-lined cloak that had at one point belonged to Boromir. I knew he wouldn't care if I borrowed it; after all, he had a brand new Elf cloak just like the rest of us.

And, with the packs beneath my head and the cloak wrapped around me, I dropped off to sleep.

It seemed a mere minute later that I was awakened by a voice. In my still-mostly-asleep state, I couldn't make any sense of the words—they were little more than an insistent buzzing in my ear.

Without opening my eyes, I automatically reached over and felt around for my clock-radio. But when my fingers finally hit something, it didn't feel like the snooze button. No, it felt a bit more like…flesh?

I poked it again, just to be sure. I felt the same thing, and this time, there was a short cry of pain. My eyes snapped open, and reality came flooding back.

I was not at home, curled up in my bed, awaiting another torturous day at school. No, I was in Middle-earth, on the bank of the river What's-Its-Name, curled up in a boat. I had not hit the snooze button because it simply wasn't there.

I glanced beyond my outstretched hand. There was Frodo, peering at me over the side of my boat, clutching his right eyeball.

Ah. So _that's_ what I'd hit.

That hobbit better have been glad I was a nail-biter. Otherwise, he'd probably have needed to invest in an eyepatch.

I laughed nervously. "Sorry 'bout that," I said.

He forced a smile. "It's fine. Really." Liar. I _had_ nearly gouged his eye out, after all. "You should get up. It's our watch."

I yawned, pulled myself up, and with all the grace of a stumbling drunk, vaulted over the side of the boat onto the shore.

Well, that was where I was _supposed_ to land, anyway. But when I found myself looking _up_ at Frodo through several inches of freezing cold water, something told me I'd missed my target.

Note to Self: Dear Alee, jumping around while half asleep is not a very bright idea. Remember that now. Love, Alee.

I had been in a relatively good mood when id' woken up. Comparatively speaking, anyway. I mean, yes, I'd poked Frodo in the eye, but that had been an accident. I hadn't bitten, kicked, spit at, smacked, or otherwise harmed him for interrupting my slumber, which I have been known to do on occasion.

Now, however, I was not feeling quite so good. As I climbed up out of the river, the water in my boots squelching with every step, an almost irresistible urge to bite, kick, spit on, slap, and be generally mean to the next person that crossed my path surfaced.

I spotted Aragorn sitting on a log by the campfire. I sat down near him, as well as going as close to the fire as I could without getting burned. That water was cold, and I wanted to dry off, fast.

"You look cold," Aragorn commented. He tossed a few sticks onto the fire.

I quickly clapped a hand over my mouth to keep a snide comment ("thank you, Captain Obvious" or worse) from escaping it. He was just making an observation; no need to be unnecessarily mean to him.

"You might feel better if you get out of those clothes," he suggested.

I was on my feet in an instant, glaring down at him. "Excuse me?" I hissed. The term _unnecessary meanness_ had suddenly, magically, disappeared from my vocabulary. I lifted my foot, all set to kick him right in the face.

He looked up at me, genuine confusion in his grey eyes. "You'll catch your death if you stay in what you're wearing now. You did bring your other clothes, didn't you?" He paused, scrutinizing me. "Why are you looking at me like that? And why were you about to kick me? All I said was—oh. You thought I meant that…" He let it hang there.

I felt my face getting hot. How could I have thought Aragorn was some kind of pervert?

Oh. Because I had a sick mind and a tendency to jump to conclusions. _That_ was it…

I looked at Aragorn. He looked at me. And Frodo, who had heard the whole thing, looked at both of us.

And this, friends, is what is commonly known as an awkward silence.

I started toward my boat. "Right. I'm going to go…um, change clothes now," I called back over my shoulder. "And if either one of you look, I will _kill_ you. Got it?"

I grabbed my dry set of clothes and made a beeline for the nearest clump of bushes. Then I changed, praying all the while that no one woke up and spotted me on the way to the bathroom.

Which got me thinking about how I'd react if such an occasion arose ("freak out and die of embarrassment" was my number-one pick). And _that_ got me thinking about who I'd be most embarrassed around if they saw me changing. _That_ was a tough one.

Finally, I concluded that it would be equally as bad if any of them saw me, and that I should stop tempting fate by thinking about it.

I managed to make it back to the campfire with zero mishaps, a record for me. Taking my place on the log between my two watch-mates, I spread my damp clothes in front of the fire to dry. Then I just sat there, listening to the crickets chirp, because no one bothered to say anything.

At one point, when the constant silence had begun to get to me (and had apparently gotten to Frodo, who snoozed away on my shoulder), I attempted to strike up a conversation with the remaining conscious member of our watch party.

"So, Aragorn," I said. "Um…who's the king of this place?"

"Why?" he asked. Not exactly the rousing dialogue I'd hoped for, but it was a start.

"Something tells me that saying 'just out of curiosity' isn't going to cut it for you," I told him. "Am I right?"

He nodded.

"Okay, well, here's the deal. Last night, I sort of met up with Galadriel and she showed me this really freaky mirror thing. Then she told me I had to help save the world, and that when some certain stuff happened I'd be able to go back home. Something about a black gate being torn down and, um, and a winged crown resting on the king's head.

"So who's the king, where do I find him, and why isn't he wearing his crown?"

Aragorn just looked at me for a while. I guess he was trying to register everything I'd just said, because I'd spoken pretty quickly and asked a lot of questions.

"The only king that wears a winged crown," he told me, "is the king of Gondor."

"Right. Gondor. Awesome. And Gondor is…which way?" I asked.

Aragorn shrugged. "It doesn't matter. There is no king of Gondor."

I blinked, trying to figure that one out. "I don't get it. What are you talking about, Aragorn? Was that some kind of trick question?"

"There has not been a king of Gondor for thousands of years," he explained. "The line of kings has died out, and Gondor is ruled by the Stewards."

I sighed. "Thanks for the mini history lesson, but my confusion still knows no bounds."

"It's simple; the descendants of the king have gone into exile, and thus, there is no king," Aragorn told me, speaking slowly and enunciating very clearly, like I was some kind of idiot.

"Uh-huh…I'm not _completely_ brain-dead, you know, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't talk to me that way," I said. Then something dawned on me. "Wait a sec. if the descendants of the king went into exile, then technically, that means there's someone out there who's heir to the throne. If I want to get back home, I need to find this guy and make sure he takes his rightful place as king or whatever, right?"

Aragorn was silent for a long moment. "Yes," he sighed.

And then the confusion came back. "So, is there any particular reason you sound so bummed about this? Oh, crap. The only heir to the throne died and now I'm stuck here forever. You're trying to figure out how to break it to me gently, aren't you?"

He shook his head. "No, actually. The Heir of Elendil is alive and well. In fact…he's sitting next to you now."

I glanced at the snoring hobbit, and raised a skeptical eyebrow. "_Him_?" When Aragorn shook his head again, I looked around, trying to locate the elusive king of Gondor. The only people sitting next to me were Frodo (whom we had already established was _not_ our guy), and…

"You!" When the realization finally dawned, I nearly fell off the log. "_You're_ the king of Gondor!"

"No. Not king."

"But you're _gonna_ be," I added, still getting over the shock of one of my traveling buddies being royalty.

"No. I'm not." He looked away, at the campfire, clearly signaling the end of the conversation.

But, you understand, I was not done talking. "Well, why not? I mean, really! If it were me, I'd totally rather be king than be in exile, or whatever!"

Aragorn just gave me another shoulder-shrug. "Well, to each his own. I am not you, Alee."

My bad mood suddenly came back with a vengeance, and understandably so. I apparently had some requirements to fulfill before going home, and one of those requirements was blatantly refusing to be fulfilled.

I mean, normally I would totally have been on his side, accepting his free will and his decisions on how to live his life. Normally I am a very open-minded person and am perfectly willing to let people do their own thing.

However, normally I am not trying to escape from a Dungeons and Dragons-esque psychoverse. Normally, my entire future is not at stake.

"All right, Aragorn, have it your way," I said sweetly. "But I hope for your sake they've invented sleeping pills here. Because otherwise, I don't know how you'll be able to sleep at night, knowing that because of you, a poor young girl is stranded here, an entire dimension away from home…"

I was laying on the guilt as thick as I could, because apparently, asking nicely wasn't going to work. I wanted to make him feel bad. _Really_ bad.

When Aragorn answered me, his tone was shockingly apathetic. "Middle-earth isn't so bad. I'm sure you'll learn to like it."

Ouch. That hurt.

This wasn't going well. Past guilt-tripping, I was basically out of options. I could threaten him, but if he took me too seriously I could end up severely injured at best. And I flat-out refused to beg.

Yep. Definitely out of options.

"Well, you know what, Aragorn? You suck." I told him. "See if I ever talk to you again, you…you big meanie!" All right, so I need to work on my on-the-spot insults.

I swept away from the log, momentarily forgetting about Frodo, who fell over. Oops; I'd really have to apologize to the poor guy in the morning. Then I made a big show of stalking angrily off into the trees.

Just when I'd found a nice place to sit down, I realized I wasn't off watch duty for another two hours.

_Oh, hell_, I thought. _This is going to be a _long_ night._

_End Chapter Twelve. All right, two chapters to go, everyone! By the way, last night, I FINALLY FINISHED THIS FIC! (And there was much rejoicing. Yaaay…) If anyone cares just how grueling an experience it's been, take a look at my LiveJournal for details. (Like any of you actually will; I really need to stop deluding myself.)_

_Anyway, please oh please review me. I will be a very happy little writer if I have fifty reviews by the end of the fic (nudge, nudge, wink, wink). See you next chapter!_


	13. The Boat Trip from Hell

Welcome, dear readers, to the second-to-last chapter of this fic. Took me long enough, didn't it? Sorry. Guess what? Because of many, many excuses that I am not even going to make, this is my first official posting as a high school sophomore. Wow.

I am not posting review responses this time around. "What? Why are there no review responses?" you ask. Well, here's the thing. A few weeks ago I got an e-mail stating that was not allowing those anymore. I'm not entirely sure this is true, but I'm playing it safe here; getting banned or something is not on my to-do list. So I'd just like to say to everyone who reviewed me, thank you so much for getting me to the big five-o. Your feedback is and always will be greatly appreciated.

All right. So, here's the chapter.

Chapter XIII: (Guess what, folks? It's nearly the end…)

It _was_ a long night. The rest of our watch went something like this: I glared at Aragorn, Aragorn ignored me, and Frodo snored. Needless to say, I was more than happy when the time came to relinquish the watch to the next group.

I went back to my boat and got another, I don't know, three hours of sleep. And then, all too soon, I had to wake up again.

And Aragorn, much to my dismay, actually made good on his plan to depart at dawn. I had assumed we would just _wake up_ at dawn and go, but no. We were up _while it was still dark_, breaking camp and eating breakfast; by the time the sun actually rose, we were already loaded up in the boats and paddling our merry way down the river.

But of course, "our merry way" was really anything but. It was the same utter monotony of the day before. But at least I had been able to admire the scenery then, but that had gotten pretty old. Tree…tree…tree…hey, a rock!...tree…tree…you get it.

On the plus side, I wasn't about to fall out of the boat. That was always nice. I also found a way to pass the time: trying to come up with a way to convince Aragorn to assume the throne. I didn't get very far, but it was certainly better than just sitting there and twiddling my thumbs.

Then, after the whole day on the river, we went ashore, made camp, and went to bed. We did, by the way, keep the same watch groups, so there was another episode of me glaring, Aragorn ignoring, and Frodo snoring.

And thus it was. The next day, the fun continued. In the exact same fashion. Wash, rinse, repeat. The Wheel of Monotony kept on spinning day after day, and by day nine of the Boat Trip from Hell, I was all funned out.

By then, I'd pretty much given up on the whole Aragorn issue. If I hadn't figured anything out in the past nine days, it was a lost cause. So instead, I kept myself occupied by praying for something—_anything_—even remotely interesting to happen.

On my, I don't know, ninety-seventh prayer, something finally did. At first, I could only tell that there were some cliffs up ahead. Change of the scenery; big deal. But as we got closer, I saw that the cliffs were shaped kind of funny. And as we got even closer, I saw that the cliffs had been carved in the likenesses of two men. Each was holding out a hand in a pose that reminded me of a song. You know the one…"Stop! In the naaame of looove!"

I laughed. As you can probably guess, no one else did. Actually, everyone else's reaction was the exact opposite of mine: they all shut up and stared.

At this point, all our boats had drifted closer together, so I easily heard Aragorn's hushed, reverent tones as he said, "The Argonath! Long have I desired to look upon the kings of old…my kin."

While this speech caused everybody else to ooh and aah, it again had a completely different effect on me.

"Oh, the _Argonath_! Long have I desired to Long have I desired to look upon the kings of old! My _kin_!" I mimicked in a high, squeaky voice, making a talking puppet with my hand. When Aragorn didn't respond to my mocking him, I tried a different tactic. I looked way up at the Argonath statues, switched back to my normal voice, and said loudly, "Gee, they don't look much like you, Aragorn. I don't think you're really related to them. _I_ think you're just saying that to make yourself look good. If you were, say, _King_, then maybe, but…"

He just kept on ignoring me, while my other seven companions put on their "do I even _want_ to know?" looks.

I was all ready to start in on Aragorn again when Legolas shushed me, saying something about orcs patrolling the eastern shore that would be attracted by all my carrying-on. I couldn't see any orcs anywhere, so he was probably just trying to shut me up without saying something like, you know, "shut up".

So I did shut up, and immediately. Because by the looks of it, my attempts at annoyance had worked on everyone _but_ their target, and I was fixing to get myself thrown bodily into the river if I kept it up.

We went on, and passed beneath the statues. As we did, I was struck by the disturbing thought that the statues were so big, that we could very possibly be smushed to death by so much as a fallen fingernail. I kept my eyes fixed on the bottom of the boat until we were past.

Once we'd gotten by (without a single incident of Death By Fingernail), we found ourselves on a lake that ended in a waterfall. I had a feeling this was our destination, especially when we went ashore. For the past eight days, we'd be on the river from sunup to sundown, and right then it was early afternoon.

Once we were out of the boats, everyone got to do their own thing. Well, I did, at any rate. I sat down with Merry, Pippin, and Gimli, but instead of listening to Aragorn outlining the next leg of the journey as they were, I zoned out.

I wondered just what I'd be doing if I were back at home. It depended on the day, really, but I'd lost track of what day it was when the higher priority of escaping a certain monster-infested mine had presented itself. I couldn't recall if it was a weekday (in which case I'd be in German class about now, passing notes to Torie and Jess) or the weekend (in which case I'd likely be reading or watching TV).

Hard to believe how much my day-to-day schedule had changed in a few short weeks…

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Aragorn set off into the trees by himself. It was at this point that I decided to revert back to reality; it was a chance to pester Aragorn without annoying anyone else.

Seizing the opportunity to fulfill my petty desires, I got up and followed him. It wasn't easy: the path he took was steep and rocky, yet he somehow managed to traverse it with speed and grace I could never in a million years hope to emulate. So as Aragorn dashed through the trees like some kind of gazelle on speed, I spent most of my time stumbling over stones and roots in a pathetic attempt to catch up with him.

It helped, though, that Aragorn would every so-often just stop in his tracks for a minute at a time or more, which gave me time to catch up with him despite what I lacked in the speed and grace department. Whenever he did stop, he's crouch down and stare intently at the dirt, á la Sherlock Holmes sans the nifty magnifying glass.

_What is he looking for?_ I wondered. _Oh, I don't know. Who cares? Annoy first, ask questions later. That's the plan, Alee._

I finally caught up to him at the top of a hill, next to a miniature-watchtower-looking thing. I don't know what I expected to see him doing there, but I certainly didn't expect him to be kneeling in front of Frodo, grasping his hand. What was he…proposing!

Oh, boy, that was just too good. I'd hit the proverbial motherlode of mockery. I couldn't have come up with a better situation to make fun of if I'd tried. I started humming the wedding march, _loudly_—

—and stopped abruptly when I saw something odd behind Aragorn. Well, not directly behind him, but off in the _distance_ behind him. A large group of birds had vacated the trees and flown off very, very quickly. A second later, another flock zoomed away, and then another.

As far as I knew, birds didn't fly with that much urgency unless there was something scaring them, like someone shooting a gun nearby. I didn't hear any gunfire (and considering that people still shot at stuff with bows and arrows in Middle-earth, I'd be pretty worried if I _did_), but something just told me that maybe I should let Aragorn know.

I mean, for all I knew it was only Merry and Pippin throwing rocks at the trees, but I wasn't about to stake my life on it. And besides, if that _was_ all that was going on, the worst case scenario was that I'd get yelled at for raising another false alarm. Nothing I couldn't handle.

I approached Aragorn and tapped him on the shoulder. "Hey, uh, Aragorn? I need to talk to you."

His eyes stayed on Frodo as he replied coolly, "I thought you weren't speaking to me, Alee."

"I'm not!" I asserted. "Or, I wasn't. Something like that. Believe me, if it wasn't important, I wouldn't be. Look, I've got to tell you something, okay?"

He shook his head slightly, and said, "I would have gone with you to the end…into the very fires of Mordor." Oh, so he was just ignoring me now. How mature of the Jerk Who Would Not Be King. Really.

I sighed and, instead of tapping him on the shoulder, I gave him a sharp poke instead. "Seriously, this is important! Like, _really_ important. There's something—"

He swatted my hand away and shook his head again. It was at about this time that I realized why he wasn't taking me seriously.

_Dammit! I can't believe this!_ I thought angrily. _The _one time_ I actually manage to bother him, we're probably about to die. Doesn't that just freakin' figure!_

"I'm not trying to bug you this time, Aragorn!" I said, as angry in speech as I had been in thought. "There's something in the trees heading our way, and I just thought you might like to know about it before whatever it is comes and kills us in the middle of your big speech, all right!"

He didn't ignore me this time, per se. But on the other hand, he didn't thank me for potentially saving his life, either. What he did was stand up, draw his sword, and whirl around to face me. For half a second, I thought he might kill me, or threaten to at the very least. But then I realized he was focused on something behind me.

I turned and looked. When I saw what he was looking at, it was all I could do to suppress the triumphant "HA! I _told_ you so!" that I so desperately wanted to let loose.

And then the fear kicked in.

Because coming toward us was a large group of orcs, probably in the ball park of a hundred. That wasn't too many more than we'd fought in Moria, but there were two teeny, tiny, practically insignificant difference that put our side at a severe disadvantage.

The first was that in Moria, we'd had ten people, and right now, we had three. Wait, scratch that, _two_, because Aragorn was telling Frodo to make a break for it and Frodo was actually _listening_ to him. So instead of being outnumbered ten to one, we were outnumbered fifty to one.

And the second thing was that these orcs were all bigger than I was, covered in armor, and wielding what looked like really, really big meat cleavers.

Yeah. Not exactly the textbook definition of a fair fight. And still Aragorn advanced toward them, brave man that he was.

Or stupid. I took another look at the horde of armored monsters. Yep. Definitely stupid. There wasn't a chance he could take on all those things and walk away breathing.

Chances were, I wouldn't either, but I had promised Aragorn that I wouldn't run away anymore. Normally I think that self-preservation would have won out with me, but _no_, my conscience just had to go and kick in at a time like this. _I hate you, Jiminy Cricket. The first thing I do when I get to heaven is squash you like the bug you are. Thanks a lot._

I took a deep breath and drew my sword.

And thus ends Chapter Thirteen. Hope you all enjoyed it.

Oh, and just thought I'd mention this, but please excuse the Neopets reference. When I wrote this, I knew I'd heard it somewhere, but I couldn't figure out where. Then my brother told me it was on Neopets, and it all made sense. Ah-ha. And if you didn't catch the reference, then never mind.

Coming soon (hopefully within the next two weeks, but I'm not making any promises): the fourteenth—and final—chapter of _Confessions of a Confused Teenager._ Yay!

Right, it's almost midnight and I'm sleepy, so the last thing I'll say before I stumble off to bed is this:

Reviews make me a happy little author. Reviews inspire me to stay up and type at all hours of the night so you readers can finally see a chapter. Bottom line is that reviews good. Please give me a few more reviews before this fic is over. Thank you and goodnight everybody.


	14. Breaking Up

_Well, it's been a year and twelve days since I last updated. And now, after that obscene amount of time, here at last is the final chapter of COACT (Book One, anyhow)._

_I'll skip the standard pre-chapter ranting and get on with it then, shall I?_

Chapter XIV (In which Book One _finally_ comes to a close.)

I finally understood why my sword had been named "Blue Star." The glow it emitted was almost blinding, even in daylight. I gave my eyes a couple seconds to adjust, then rushed over to help Aragorn out. But by the time I got over there, he'd vanished.

I had less than a second to wonder if he'd already died, because I'd just dashed into a throng of bloodthirsty, meat cleaver-toting super-orcs. I tried to remember what Boromir had taught me about swordplay, because my little swing-randomly-and-hope-to-hit-something strategy sent Elluin bouncing off armor and coming straight back at me.

I injured two of the super-orcs; maybe I'd even killed them, but things were moving too fast for me to really tell. Either way, I got rid of two, and four more took their place. In a matter of seconds, I was completely surrounded. No wonder they'd gotten Aragorn so quickly—

I was interrupted mid-thought by a war cry from somewhere above me. I took a quick look up, in just enough time to see Aragorn leap off the top of the watchtower. As fast as I could, I swung at a super-orc behind me, and as soon as it fell, I used me new two feet of space to scoot out of the way. Good thing I did, too, because a second later Aragorn landed.

"Hey, you're alive!" I exclaimed happily. "For a minute there, I thought the super-orcs got you!"

"Uruk-hai," he said.

Normally, I would have stopped and given him the old blank-stare treatment. But I figured that doing so in the middle of a battle might result in my untimely demise. So instead, I just said, "Say what?"

"These are Uruk-hai," he clarified, pointing at one with his sword. Or, he stabbed it. Same difference, really.

"Oh. Right. Well, it's nice to see you alive."

We stopped talking then, and continued fighting the Uruk-hai. And kept at it for a while. At some point in the proceedings, Legolas and Gimli showed up, which I was thankful for—that meant we were only outnumbered _twenty-five_ to one.

Then, over the din of clashing weaponry and screaming, dying Uruk-hai, there came another sound: a low, clear note, like someone was playing a musical instrument nearby. _Cool,_ I thought. _Background music. Like an action movie._ That was all the thought I gave it, since I was more than a little preoccupied.

As usual, Aragorn and Legolas did not take this quite as well as I did. They both stopped fighting for a second, wearing identical slack-jawed expressions. Then they recovered, exclaimed something along the lines of, "The Horn of Gondor! Boromir! Oh no!" and zoomed off.

Not wanting to be left alone with the seventy-five-or-so Uruk-hai that remained, I followed them. And, unfortunately, the seventy-five-or-so Uruk-hai followed _me_.

I'd like to point something out here. Fighting a huge group of homicidal monsters is tough on its own. Fighting a large group of homicidal monsters while running downhill is much harder. And fighting a large group of homicidal monsters while running downhill on a slope covered in trees and very big rocks is next to impossible. I realized this when I swung my sword, missed, and my momentum sent me sailing headfirst into the trunk of a tree.

It hurt like anything and made my vision go kind of swimmy, but it didn't seem to have done any serious damage.

_I'm probably going to have a bump the size of a cantaloupe, though,_ I thought bitterly. _That ought to be attractive…_

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw what appeared to be tow Aragorns dash past. Several Uruk-hai stopped approaching me and raced after the guy I could only assume they saw as a bigger threat.

A few minutes later—after the double vision went away—I pulled myself up off the ground, head still spinning. All the Uruk-hai that hadn't followed Aragorn had miraculously died. Many sported gouges that looked like they'd been made by an axe, and a great deal more were decorated with green-feathered arrows. I turned around to thank Legolas and Gimli, but didn't see them anywhere.

I followed the trail of dead super-orcs, hoping to find them, and happened upon Aragorn instead. Guy looked a little worse for the wear. He had just decapitated a huge Uruk-hai that might have been the leader. The man looked at the severed head in disgust, and then kicked it.

It was a good kick, worthy of any professional soccer player. I'd have been really impressed if he hadn't kicked it _right toward me._

I ducked just in time to avoid being brained by the Universe's Most Revolting Soccer Ball Ever. Once it landed somewhere behind me, I started yelling at Aragorn. I mean, I'm sure he hadn't seen me, but still. Ew.

"What was that? You almost hit me, you whacko! That was—!"

I realized I was yelling at the patch of dirt Aragorn had vacated without my noticing. He had moved to the other side of the clearing, and was talking to…something. I couldn't see just what from where I stood.

I stumbled toward him, picking my way past the multitude of dead bodies (none, I was happy to see, belonged to anyone I knew). When I finally got to Aragorn, I found that he was cradling a very human corpse, peppered with enough arrows to be considered a pincushion. I still couldn't see the face, because Aragorn was in the way.

But I recognized the sword in the figure's bloodied hand. It was all too easy, in fact; how many times had that same sword nearly killed me in mock-duels back in Lothlórien?

Then I remembered something. It was something I'd forgotten over the past nine days. Something I hadn't paid much attention to in the first place.

I'd seen this before. It had been one of the many slides in Galadriel's Magic Mirror Picture Show. The lone figure pierced with black arrows, surrounded by his slain opponents.

Crap.

But wait. Boromir was speaking; he was still alive. Not for too much longer, though, by the look of him. His face was a shade of pale I'd only seen matched by printer paper, and bright red blood welled in his mouth as he spoke.

"…it is over," he was saying to Aragorn. "The world of men will fall…and my people fail."

I opened my mouth and said, "Boromir…" That was as far as I got. What do you say to a dying guy? _Nice knowing you? Don't go into the light?_ I couldn't think of anything appropriate, and Aragorn spoke before I got a chance to continue.

"I do not know what strength is in my blood," he told Boromir, "but I swear to you I will not let the White City fall…nor our people fail."

I had a feeling there was some kind of significance to his words, but I didn't get it at all. It probably would have helped if I'd known what the White City was.

Boromir, however, got it—whatever it was—immediately. "Our people…" he murmured, smiling weakly. "Our…people…"

Okay. Wait. I could figure this out. "Our people." Right. So Aragorn was acknowledging that he was of the same—race? Nationality?—as Boromir, who was from…Gondor, so…

"I would have followed you, my brother…" Boromir said slowly. He was fading fast. "…My captain…My king…"

And that's when, finally, I understood.

King! Gondor! King _of_ Gondor! Aragorn was going to do it! I would have actually jumped for joy if Boromir hadn't been dying at me feet.

I looked down. Forget _dying;_ while I'd been trying to puzzle out Aragorn's speech, Boromir had, in the words of Charles Dickens, "conquered a confirmed habit of living into which he had fallen."

Aragorn murmured, "Be at peace, son of Gondor," and gently kissed him.

On the _forehead,_ freak.

Just looking down at the body—_Boromir_—creeped me out way more than anything else I'd seen in this crazy place. I could handle the monsters—I'd seen horror movies, after all. But this? No way. Just a couple of hours before, I'd seen him out in the river, rowing a boat and talking to Merry and Pippin and being all—alive.

Now he just lay there with glassy eyes and blood dripping from his lips, sword clutched in one hand and arrows peppering his body.

He couldn't be dead. He just _couldn't_. I'd just started getting along with him! And even when we hadn't been friends, I'd still respected the fact that he was a good fighter. It didn't seem right that someone so skilled in battle or whatever should be lying there, dead as a doornail, while a bumbling little teenager like me had managed to survive practically unscathed.

A wave of guilt slammed into me, so forceful someone might as well have punched me in the stomach. How many weeks ago had it been, our time in Moria? How many weeks since I'd wished he'd fall down a hole or get shot by an orc? It seemed so long, and I had all but forgotten thinking those things. But now, every single "leave me the hell alone" and "why don't you go curl up and die somewhere?" came back with grisly clarity.

_I'm sorry,_ I thought. _I was just kidding. I swear. I didn't mean it._

Aragorn turned from Boromir to look up at me. "Didn't mean what?" he asked. Apparently, I'd thought aloud.

"I…I…" I paused, focused on keeping back the tears that welled in my eyes. They fell anyway, so I kept going. "I said a lot of mean things to him before like…that it wished he'd die. And now he did…I know I apologized to him, but I still feel like…like…"

I started sobbing then, which was really just as well, because I couldn't really think of just what I felt like. Scum, maybe. Worse than scum, if there was something worse. Because I'd been holding his bad attitude toward me against him all that time, and instead of maybe taking a minute or two to learn what his point of view was, I'd just sat there and acted like a complete witch. With a capital B.

There was also the huge part of me that felt guilty because, when I could have been helping Aragorn defend Boromir or whatever, I'd been lying half-unconscious at the base of a tree I'd run into.

And then, I managed to do something even more embarrassing than breaking down in front of Galadriel: I sank down to ground level where Aragorn knelt and buried my face in his shoulder, still bawling.

Which, in hindsight, was really not the smartest of ideas. He'd just been in a pretty intense battle, and had the whole Eau de Sweat-and-Blood thing going on. After a moment, I pulled away and wiped some of said blood off the bridge of my nose.

"Dude, take a shower," I muttered, grimacing. "You stink."

He grinned.

My scowl deepened. ""No, I'm serious. What are the people of Gondor going to think if their ruler smells like he just climbed out of a boxing ring?" Okay, even _I_ couldn't help a little bit of a smile at that. I mean, hey, my chances of going home had just dramatically risen.

"True," he said, getting to his feet and helping me do the same. "But let's not get so far ahead of ourselves. We still have much to deal with here and now. Boromir, for one thing. Merry and Pippin's capture, for another."

I did a double take. "Merry and Pippin's…what?" I looked around, and realized for the first time how few of us there were. Aragorn was with me, and I was vaguely aware of Legolas and Gimli somewhere behind us. Boromir lay dead at our feet; Merry and Pippin, having apparently been hobbit-napped, were nowhere in sight; Frodo and Sam—

"Hey! Where _are_ Frodo and Sam?"

"There." Aragorn pointed at the lake. Out in the middle of it was one of our boats; in that were Frodo and a half-drowned Sam, paddling for dear life toward the other side.

"Um…right. So, um, what do we do?" I asked, regarding our situation in general.

"Leave the dead," Aragorn said decisively. "Except Boromir. We should give him a proper funeral. But we do not have time to bury him, so what…?" He trailed off.

"So why don't we just, I dunno, cremate him?" I asked. At the same time, Legolas said, "Wait. I have an idea."

Guess who Aragorn chose to listen to? As usual, everybody _but_ me. Why did he always do that?

I rolled my eyes as Legolas shared his "brilliant" idea. It turned out to be putting Boromir into one of our boats, push him out onto the lake, and let the waterfall take him where it would. Oh, lovely. To heck with a traditional cremation—let's just chuck him off a cliff!

I helped Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli prepare the funeral boat, trying hard not to whine about Legolas's idea being picked over mine. We hauled Boromir into one of the boats and spruced him up, removing the arrows, washing off the blood, and laying his sword, shield, and the remains of his horn with him.

It was all kind of unsettling, but it was nice to have something to do other than sit there and weep.

It also consisted of a fair bit of stealing. Legolas put the arrows in his quiver, Gimli discreetly pocketed all food items in his pack, and I caught Aragorn strapping on Boromir's vambraces. Sheesh! I was in with a team of grave robbers!

I said as much, and Aragorn fed me a story along the lines of, "I'm only taking these to remember him by. Same reason you've got his dagger, right?"

Um, no. That dagger was a _gift_, remember? As in, Boromir _gave_ it to me. As in, I did not just take it off his _dead body._

This time I kept my mouth shut. I really didn't feel like escalating the situation into another "I'm never speaking to you again" episode. After all, we'd just gotten over the _last_ one. Instead, I just followed Aragorn into the boat we'd tied Boromir's makeshift funeral barge to.

He and Legolas rowed us out into the middle of the lake, as close to the falls as we dared go. Once there, we relinquished Boromir's boat to the current. As we watched it go over the waterfall, Aragorn began to sing.

_Through Rohan over fen and field where the long grass grows_

_The West Wind comes walking, and about the walls it goes._

'_What news from the West, O wandering wind, do you bring to me tonight?_

_Have you seen Boromir the Tall by moon or by starlight?'_

'_I saw him ride over seven streams, over waters wide and grey;_

_I saw him walk in empty lands, until he passed away_

_Into the shadows of the North. I saw him then no more._

_The North Wind may have heard the horn of the son of Denethor.'_

'_O Boromir! From the high walls westward I looked afar,_

_But you came not from the empty lands where no men are.'_

The slow melody made me want to start crying again, but it was like there weren't any tears left. I just sat there, staring at the spot on the fall where I'd last seen the boat.

Legolas picked up the tune:

_From the mouths of the Sea the South Wind flies, from the sandhills and the stones;_

_The wailing of the gulls it bears, and at the gate it moans._

'_What news from the South, O sighing wind, do you bring to me at eve?_

_Where now is Boromir the Fair? He tarries and I grieve.'_

'_Ask not of me where he doth dwell—so many bones there lie_

_On the white shores and the dark shores under the stormy sky;_

_So many have passed down Anduin to find the flowing Sea._

_Ask of the North Wind news of them the North Wind sends to me!'_

'_O Boromir! Beyond the gate the seaward road runs south,_

_But you come not with the wailing gulls from the grey sea's mouth.'_

Aragorn went back in for another verse.

_From the Gate of Kings the North Wind rides, and past the roaring falls;_

_And clear and cold about the tower its loud horn calls._

'_What news of the North, O mighty wind, do you bring to me today?_

_What news of Boromir the Bold? For he is long away.'_

'_Beneath Amon Hen I heard his cry. There many foes he fought._

_His cloven shield, his broken sword, they to the water brought._

_His head so proud, his face so fair, his limbs they laid to rest;_

_And Rauros, golden Rauros-falls, bore him upon its breast.'_

'_o Boromir! The Tower of Guard shall ever northward gaze_

_To Rauros, golden Rauros-falls, until the end of days.'_

The last note hung in the air for an almost unnaturally long time before being swallowed by a sudden crushing silence. The four of us sat there in the boat for what seemed like an eternity.

I felt like I should say something, some deep, profound eulogy befitting a fallen warrior. Nothing came to mind.

We rowed back to shore, and as we did, I finally found my voice. "Wow," I said. "So did you guys have that prepared, or were you just ad-libbing? Because if you were, that was pretty good."

Okay, so I'd kind of missed the deep-and-profound mark. Still, my innate stupidity was better than the quiet.

Both Aragorn and Legolas declined to answer my question; I chose to believe they'd been ad-libbing. Because, really, I don't think they just had that song ready in case Boromir just happened to drop dead, or whatever. That would have been seriously creepy.

Back on the shore, Legolas, Gimli, and I waited patiently to hear Aragorn's plan of action. He didn't speak for a while, so the rest of us just kind of stood around the riverbank.

Then, inexplicably, Legolas raced off toward the boat we'd just gotten out of, and started pushing it back into the river. "Hurry!" he said to the rest of us. "Frodo and Sam have reached the eastern shore!"

I shot him a worried look. "You _just noticed that_?" I asked him. "Dude, Frodo and Sam have been out on the water for the past _half an hour._ Their boat has been out on the river the _entire time_ we were holding the funeral. How, in that much time, did you manage to miss them? _I'm_ the oblivious one; you're stealing my thunder here!"

The Elf decided not to dignify that with a comment, but instead turned his attention to Aragorn, who hadn't moved. "You mean not to follow them?" he asked, obviously perplexed.

"Frodo's fate is no longer in our hands," Aragorn answered. I suppose that sounded a little better than the truth, which was more like, _Heck no, we're not following them! I'm the one who told Frodo to run for his life in the first place, because at this rate, our whole troupe would be dead of old age before we even got _close_ to Mordor!_

Legolas and Gimli, who hadn't witnessed Aragorn and Frodo's touching goodbye, bought his response. Neither of them looked especially pleased about it, though.

"Then it has all been in vain," Gimli sighed. "The Fellowship has failed."

"Not yet. Not while we have strength left," Aragorn vowed bravely. "We shall not abandon Merry and Pippin to torture and death."

He turned and started up the slope into the forest, calling back to us in his Leader Voice. "Leave all that can be spared behind! We travel light!"

I glanced into the bottom of the boat, where my t-shirt, sweater, sneakers, and favorite blue jeans lay in a heap. Oh, well. It wasn't like they'd do me any more good in Middle-earth. _Bye, guys,_ I thought.

Then Aragorn turned back to us, wearing a grin that, on him, could only be described as slightly manic and extremely scary. "Let's hunt some orc!" he said, and dashed away into the trees.

Legolas smiled and looked at Gimli, who let out an excited whoop. Together, they took off at a run.

"Hey! What about me?" I yelled to them. But they were either too far away to hear me, or they were just ignoring me again. Knowing them, it was probably the latter.

I sighed. "Wait for me, you guys! Come on! I' going orc-hunting with you!" I started after them, but stopped when I realized we weren't _really_ going orc-hunting.

We were going _super-_orc-hunting. Merry and Pippin by Uruk-hai. The big, six-foot-something ones with the meat cleavers.

But wait, again! Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli were _happy_ about tracking down and eventually battling a horde of these things? _What_? I swear, I am never, ever, in a million years going to understand guys.

"Boys," I muttered disgustedly. And with that, I began the long run to catch up to my three companions.

_Fin_

_I can't believe I started this fic almost five years ago. All that time, and it's finally finished. I feel so proud._

_Thank you so much to everyone who read this and gave me the lovely reviews:_

_**Gwenivive, RenegadeKitsune, sapphire2988, TrekieGreenieShannaraElfOfME, Kiami Sinno, Legolanderin, Mystic Archery Peanut Butter Horse, Morwen, MtReload, The Great White Emu, Ningwen, IloveJesus7390, Tash the President, kurleyhawk2, mellonim, XClaire BearX, The.Lover.Of.Darkness, LoudMouthStar, cobra1984, TheAngryPrincess13, Natalia101, -incessant embers-, Neassa, SilentStream, Maidenhair, Milla J, Fk306 animelover, freelance beatnik, Mystical Full Moon Maiden, Arialas, Naerdiel, E.Tphonehome, XOmeNyou, Jasmine101, **and **TheWall. **Can't thank any of you enough for all the wonderful things you've said to me._

_Stay tuned for Book the Second. First chapter should be up sometime within the next couple of weeks. _

_Thanks again,_

_Kaisa E. _


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